Critical incidents in anorexia nervosa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Lara Tosunlar ◽  
Rachael Blackburn ◽  
Steven Williams ◽  
Kate Tchanturia ◽  
...  

Background: Although social-emotional difficulties are believed play a key role in anorexia nervosa (AN), there is uncertainty regarding what these difficulties might look like. Previous research has largely focused on a “disease model” of social-emotional processing in AN with little attention paid to positive emotions and experiences. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to obtain a fuller picture of critical life events in AN. Methods: Thirty-four participants aged 16-48 with current or past AN completed an online survey describing self-defined positive and difficult critical events.Results: Two major themes were identified in the descriptions of positive critical events: Moments of celebration, reflecting external focus, and Unexpected positive outcomes, revealing negative biases. Difficult events were broadly divided into included eating disorder (ED) related and Non-ED life events, involving discussion of relational conflict and feeling unsupported. Discussion: The findings suggest that AN is characterised by negative emotionality and bias. However, reduced self-focused attention and increased “big-picture” thinking, and shifting negative expectation through corrective experiences may be helpful in AN and could be useful targets for further research.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Lara Tosunlar ◽  
Rachael Blackburn ◽  
Steven Williams ◽  
Kate Tchanturia ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundAlthough social-emotional difficulties are believed play a key role in anorexia nervosa (AN), there is uncertainty regarding what these difficulties might look like. Previous research has largely focused on a “disease model” of social-emotional processing in AN with little attention paid to positive emotions and experiences. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to obtain a fuller picture of critical life events in AN. MethodsThirty-four participants aged 16-48 with current or past AN completed an online survey describing self-defined positive and difficult critical events.ResultsTwo major themes were identified in the descriptions of positive critical events: Moments of celebration, reflecting external focus, and Unexpected positive outcomes, revealing negative biases. Difficult events were broadly divided into included eating disorder (ED) related and Non-ED life events, involving discussion of relational conflict and feeling unsupported. DiscussionThe findings suggest that AN is largely characterised by negative emotionality and bias. However, people with AN can live rich lives with positive experiences, which reflect reduced self-focused attention and increased “big-picture” thinking. Moreover, people with AN may be open to have their negative expectations challenged through corrective experiences. Together these findings be useful targets for further clinical research.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Lara Tosunlar ◽  
Rachael Blackburn ◽  
Steven Williams ◽  
Kate Tchanturia ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Although social-emotional difficulties are believed play a key role in anorexia nervosa (AN), there is uncertainty regarding what these difficulties might look like. Previous research has largely focused on a “disease model” of social-emotional processing in AN with little attention paid to positive emotions and experiences. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to obtain a fuller picture of critical life events as identified by those with lived AN experience.Methods: Thirty-four participants aged 16-48 with current or past AN completed an online survey describing self-defined positive and difficult critical events. Thematic analysis was used to assess patterns in participants narrative responses.Results: Two major themes were identified in the descriptions of positive critical events: Moments of celebration and Unexpected positive outcomes. These major themes revealed increased external focus and some corrective experiences. Difficult events clustered into life events that were identified as Eating disorder (ED) related and Non-ED related and included the dimensions of relational conflict and feeling unsupported.Discussion: The findings suggest that although negative emotionality was identified in the accounts of those with lived experience of AN capacity for “big-picture” thinking with and explicit focus on others was also identified. Moreover, an openness to corrective experiences that worked to challenge negative expectations was evident for some participants. Together these findings have scope as targets for further clinical research and treatment interventions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Lara Tosunlar ◽  
Rachael Blackburn ◽  
Steven Williams ◽  
Kate Tchanturia ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Although social-emotional difficulties are believed play a key role in anorexia nervosa (AN), there is uncertainty regarding what these difficulties might look like. Previous research has largely focused on a “disease model” of social-emotional processing in AN with little attention paid to positive emotions and experiences. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to obtain a fuller picture of critical life events as identified by those with lived AN experience. Methods Thirty-four participants aged 16–48 with current or past AN completed an online survey describing self-defined positive and difficult critical events. Thematic analysis was used to assess patterns in participants narrative responses. Results Two major themes were identified in the descriptions of positive critical events: Moments of celebration and Unexpected positive outcomes. These major themes revealed increased external focus and some corrective experiences that challenged the participants pre-existing expectations leading to new positive outcomes. Difficult events clustered into life events that were identified as Eating disorder (ED) related and Non-ED related and included the dimensions of relational conflict and feeling unsupported. Discussion The findings suggest that although negative emotionality was identified in the accounts of those with lived experience of AN capacity for “big-picture” thinking with and explicit focus on others was also identified. Moreover, an openness to corrective experiences that worked to challenge negative expectations was evident for some participants. Together these findings have scope as targets for further clinical research and treatment interventions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenni Leppanen ◽  
Olivia Patsalos ◽  
Sophie Surguladze ◽  
Jess Kerr-Gaffney ◽  
Steven Williams ◽  
...  

Background: Social-emotional difficulties have been proposed to play a key role in the progression of psychiatric disorders, including anorexia nervosa. The aim of the current study was to build on existing work and develop more ecologically valid measures of interpretation biases and evoked emotional responses. Methodology: 124 healthy female participants aged 18 – 25 took part in the study. We evaluated two sets of 18 brief film clips to be used in two tasks assessing interpretation of ambiguous scenarios and reactions to emotionally provoking scenes. Written interpretations were coded, the valence of the interpretations was analysed, and an ambiguity check was conducted. Evoked facial affect and mood ratings in response to each film clip during the second, evoked emotions task were analysed using exploratory factor analyses. Results: Most of the film clips were interpreted in the expected neutral, positive, and negative manner while still retaining some ambiguity. However, participants were more attuned to the negative cues in the ambiguous film clips and three film clips were identified as unambiguous. The exploratory factor analyses showed that the positive and negative film clips used in the evoked emotions task formed their own factors as expected. However, there was substantial cross-loading of the neutral film clips when participants’ facial expression data was analysed.Discussion: A subset of the film clips evaluated here could be used to assess interpretation biases and evoked emotional responses among people with anorexia nervosa. Ambiguous negatively valenced film clips should have more subtle negative cues to ensure there is enough room for interpretation. Additionally, care should be taken to ensure optimal recording conditions if evoked facial expressions are to be assessed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 1172-1186
Author(s):  
Carolina Beita-Ell ◽  
Michael P. Boyle

Purpose The purposes of this study were to examine the self-efficacy of school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in conducting multidimensional treatment with children who stutter (CWS) and to identify correlates of self-efficacy in treating speech-related, social, emotional, and cognitive domains of stuttering. Method Three hundred twenty randomly selected school-based SLPs across the United States responded to an online survey that contained self-efficacy scales related to speech, social, emotional, and cognitive components of stuttering. These ratings were analyzed in relation to participants' beliefs about stuttering treatment and their comfort level in treating CWS, perceived success in therapy, and empathy levels, in addition to their academic and clinical training in fluency disorders as well as demographic information. Results Overall, SLPs reported moderate levels of self-efficacy on each self-efficacy scale and on a measure of total self-efficacy. Significant positive associations were observed between SLPs' self-efficacy perceptions and their comfort level in treating CWS, self-reported success in treatment, beliefs about the importance of multidimensional treatment, and self-reported empathy. There were some discrepancies between what SLPs believed was important to address in stuttering therapy and how they measured success in therapy. Conclusions Among school-based SLPs, self-efficacy for treating school-age CWS with a multidimensional approach appears stronger than previously reported; however, more progress in training and experience is needed for SLPs to feel highly self-efficacious in these areas. Continuing to improve clinician self-efficacy for stuttering treatment through improved academic training and increased clinical experiences should remain a high priority in order to enhance outcomes for CWS. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12978194


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Valentin Terhoeven ◽  
Christoph Nikendei ◽  
Sandra Faschingbauer ◽  
Julia Huber ◽  
Kymberly D. Young ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by an overgeneralization of food/body-related autobiographical memories (AM). This is regarded as an emotion regulation strategy with adverse long-term effects implicated in disorder maintenance and treatment resistance. Therefore, we aimed to examine neural correlates of food/body-related AM-recall in AN. Methods Twenty-nine female patients with AN and 30 medication-free age-sex-matched normal-weight healthy controls (HC) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while recalling AMs in response to food/body-related and neutral cue words. To control for general knowledge retrieval, participants engaged in a semantic generation and riser detection task. Results In comparison to HC, patients with AN generated fewer and less specific AMs in response to food/body-related words, but not for neutral cue words. Group comparisons revealed reduced activation in regions associated with self-referential processing and memory retrieval (precuneus and angular gyrus) during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM in patients with AN. Brain connectivity in regions associated with memory functioning and executive control was reduced in patients with AN during the retrieval of specific food/body-related AM. Finally, resting-state functional connectivity analysis revealed no differences between groups, arguing against a general underlying disconnection of brain networks implicated in memory and emotional processing in AN. Conclusions These results indicate impaired neural processing of food/body-related AM in AN, with a reduced involvement of regions involved in self-referential processing. Our findings are discussed as possible neuronal correlates of emotional avoidance in AN and provide new insights of AN-pathophysiology underscoring the importance of targeting dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies during treatment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2.21) ◽  
pp. 319
Author(s):  
Saini Jacob Soman ◽  
P Swaminathan ◽  
R Anandan ◽  
K Kalaivani

With the developed use of online medium these days for sharing views, sentiments and opinions about products, services, organization and people, micro blogging and social networking sites are acquiring a huge popularity. One of the biggest social media sites namely Twitter is used by several people to share their life events, views and opinion about different areas and concepts. Sentiment analysis is the computational research of reviews, opinions, attitudes, views and peoples’ emotions about different products, services, firms and topics through categorizing them as negative and positive emotions. Sentiment analysis of tweets is a challenging task. This paper makes a critical review on the comparison of the challenges associated with sentiment analysis of Tweets in English Language versus Indian Regional Languages. Five Indian languages namely Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi and Bengali have been considered in this research and several challenges associated with the analysis of Twitter sentiments in those languages have been identified and conceptualized in the form of a framework in this research through systematic review.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Petrocchi ◽  
Annalisa Levante ◽  
Federica Bianco ◽  
Ilaria Castelli ◽  
Flavia Lecciso

The present study focused on the psychological impact that the lockdown due to coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) had on families in Italy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Italian government imposed a strict lockdown for all citizens. People were forced to stay at home, and the length of the lockdown was uncertain. Previous studies analyzed the impact of social distance measures on individuals' mental health, whereas few studies have examined the interplay between the adults' functioning, as parents, during this period and the association with the child's adjustment. The present study tested if maternal distress/coping predicts children's behaviors during the COVID-19 lockdown, hypothesizing a mediation effect via children's emotional experience. Participants were 144 mothers (Mage = 39.3, 25–52, SD = 5.6) with children aged 5–10 years (Mage = 7.54, SD = 1.6, 82 boys); mothers answered to an online survey. Results indicated that mothers with higher exposure to COVID-19 showed higher levels of distress and higher display of coping attitudes, even if in the structural equation modeling model, the COVID-19 exposure was not a predictor of mothers' distress. Compared with mothers with good coping skills, mothers with higher stress levels were more likely to attribute negative emotions to their children at the expense of their positive emotions. Moreover, children's emotions acted as mediators between maternal distress/coping and children's adaptive/maladaptive behaviors. In conclusion, it is important to support parents during pandemic emergence, by providing them with adequate information to manage the relationship with their children, to reduce their level of distress and to enhance their coping abilities.


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