Thought-shape fusion in residential eating disorder treatment: Cognitive defusion as a mediator between thought-action fusion and treatment outcome.

Autor: Woolley MG; Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States of America. Electronic address: Mercedes.Woolley@usu.edu., Schwartz SE; Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States of America., Knudsen FM; Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States of America., Lensegrav-Benson T; Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States of America; Avalon Hills Eating Disorder Specialists, United States of America; Mindful Path Psychological Services, United States of America., Quakenbush-Roberts B; Avalon Hills Eating Disorder Specialists, United States of America., Twohig MP; Utah State University, Logan, UT, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Eating behaviors [Eat Behav] 2024 Aug; Vol. 54, pp. 101909. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 16.
DOI: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2024.101909
Abstrakt: An understudied cognitive bias within eating disorder (ED) psychopathology is Thought-Shape Fusion (TSF), which involves irrational beliefs about the likelihood and moral implications of feared outcomes related to shape, weight, and food. This phenomenon has received less attention within the context of ED treatment, with little known about potential processes of change to address TSF and ultimately promote ED recovery. We propose cognitive defusion as a process of change, a metacognitive process that emphasizes observing thoughts objectively rather than appraising thoughts as absolute truth. We explored whether cognitive defusion, that is, reductions in body image-related cognitive fusion, mediated the relationship between trait-level TSF and treatment outcomes in a transdiagnostic ED sample of adult and adolescent females (N = 130) presenting to residential care. We found that reductions in body image-related cognitive fusion mediates the association between trait-level TSF at baseline and ED severity at discharge. However, when the sample was separated into adolescent and adult subgroups, these results only remained significant for adolescents. These findings underscore the relevance of targeting cognitive defusion as a potential mechanism to address the impact of trait levels of TSF cognitions on ED psychopathology.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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