ABSTRACT
A cognitive-behavioral analysis accommodates much of the available evidence on the nature of bulimia nervosa. It seems best suited to conceptualizing the maintenance and modification of bulimia. D. M. Garner et al. found that on both clinical and psychometric measures, normal-weight bulimics resembled bulimic anorexics and that both groups differed from anorexics of the restricting type. These psychosocial pressures on women frequently conflict with biological reality. The cognitive-behavioral treatment was superior to psychotherapy in terms of its effects on patients’ general clinical status, psychopathology, social adjustment, and self-assessment of outcome. Exposure and response prevention is a behavioral technique that warrants particular attention, both because of its theoretical appeal and its empirical track record with clinical disorders, including bulimia nervosa. The use of exposure and response prevention in the treatment of bulimia nervosa derived from J. C. Rosen and H. Leitenberg’s analysis of the disorder in terms of the two-factor, anxiety-reduction model.
