The Effect of Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy on Body Image, Attachment Style and Emotion Regulation in Women with Eating Disorder

The purpose of this study is to explain the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy on body image, attachment style, and emotion regulation in women with eating disorders. The present paper is a quasi-experimental study of "pretest-posttest with control group design" and was applied research based on the aim. The statistical population includes 470 women who attended nutrition clinics, psychiatric centers, and bodybuilding and aerobics clubs in areas 1, 3, 6, and 21 of Tehran in 20219. The sample includes 30 women with eating disorders who attended the above centers in 2019. They were selected by Convenience Sampling and randomly divided into control and experimental groups. Patients in the intervention group received 12 sessions of two-hour CBT group therapy over a 12-week period. Patients in the control group remained on the waiting list. Participants answered the Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI), Difficulty in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and Satisfaction with Body Image (SWBI) questionnaires in the pretest and posttest phases. We used ANCOVA and the T-test for independent samples to test the research hypotheses. SPSS version 26 was used for data analysis. The results of ANCOVA showed a significant effect of cognitive-behavioral group therapy on body image (F= 6.632, p= 0.016), emotion regulation (F= 57.423, p=0.001), and secure attachment style (F=6.250, p= 0.019). In addition, the results of the Independent Sample T-test showed that cognitive behavioral therapy had a significant effect on avoidance attachment style (t= 3.272, p= 0.006) and ambivalence attachment style (t= 4.570, p=0.001). The present study demonstrated that cognitive behavioral group therapy improved body image, attachment style, and emotion regulation in women with eating disorders, and that this type of treatment may be a useful therapy for women with eating disorders.