psychological explantions for anorexia nervosa - cognitive theory Flashcards
cognitive distortions
core psychopathology of AN is cognitive distortions about body shape and weight
factor 1 - disturbed perceptions
murphy et al
argue that all other clinical features of AN stem from disturbed perceptions
including preoccupations with thoughts of food weight body shape and
people with AN become more and more critical of their own bodies
misinterpret their emotional states as feeling fat even when they are getting thinner
Williamson et al
choosing from silhouettes of increasing size to match ones body shape
37 diagnosed with AN used the body image assessment to estimate their current body size and indotae their ideal size
participants with AN were signifantly less accurate in their size estimates than the control group
AN group showed a tendency to overestimate their size and their ideal body shape was signofanlty thinner than controls
factor 2 - irrational beliefs
people with AN express irrational beliefs and attitudes about their disorder that defy logic and rational sense
Beck - irrational beliefs become second nature and give rise to automatic negative thoughts
key irrational belief in AN is perfectionism - view that individual has to meet their most demanding standards all the time
applies to all areas fo their life
usually accompanied by intensive record keeping to make sure the indivual is achieving their harsh goals
Hewitt - perfectionism is not satisfied when goals are archived
as people with AN reach their targets they raise their standards higher
forever pushing an unrealistic goal
factor 3 - cognitive inflexibility
people with AN lack cognitive flexible but y
Treasure and Schmidt
cognitive interpersonal maintenance model
suggests people with AN experience problems of set -shifting
find it difficult to switch fluently from one task to another task that requires a different set of cognitive kills
tend to apply the same presciently skills in a changed situation
indicated that inflexibility may be an important cognitive factor AN
once a vulnerable indiual gets started on weight loss they rigidly persist with it and continue to perceive themselves as needing to loose weigh
find it hard t switch to a more healthy way of thinking about their body shape and size
strength
research support for disturbed perceptions
Sachdev et al
scanned brains of partipants with AN and healthy contorls
during this partipants a saw images of theor own and other peoples body
same brain areas were activated in both groups when they were shown non self images
when shown images of themselves the partipants with AN showed bear little activation in parts of the brain supposedly incolvolved with attention
lack of attention is a form of cognitive distortion on because they are not reacting normally
suggest that disturbed perceptions exist in AN because people with AN did not attend to their own body images
strength
research support for perfectionism
Halmi et al
studied 728 women over the age of 16 years all diagnosed with AN
current symptoms were assessed by a questionnaire called the structured inventory for anorexic and bulimic eating syndromes
measures indicators fo perfectionism in childhood which participant had to recall
researchers found that childhood perfectionism was assorted with current AN symptoms
suggest perfectionism preceded onset of AN confirming it as a potential risk factors for development of the disorder
limitation
issues of causation
research covered shows that several cognitive factors are key features of AN
cognitive theory goes further and argues that these are a casual in the development of an
stop claim to make especially due to other causal theories such as genes
likely that cognitive factors are the ocnsqeucews of an rather than the causes
