ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with guidance on how to use the book, and discussion of who might bene®t from the treatment. It introduces the reader to the symptoms and treatment of bulimia nervosa (BN) by presenting a case example of a patient (Jessica) with the disorder. It highlights the symptoms and problems that she experienced in relation to her illness, and then provides a detailed description of how her treatment with our version of cognitive therapy proceeded, as outlined in more detail in the remaining chapters of the book. It includes general information (for example, about the format of sessions) as well as a session-by-session summary of the course and content of the speci®c treatment received by Jessica. The treatment described here is a synthesis of our earlier work on the cognitive theory of BN (Cooper et al. 2004) with metacognitive therapy of psychological disorders (Wells 2000). We will continue to use the term cognitive therapy in this book for simplicity but we increasingly ®nd ourselves moving towards a metacognitively focused approach.
