Early Maladaptive Schemas and Behavioral Coping Mechanisms in Relationship with Bulimic Symptomatology
Journal Title: Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy - Year 2019, Vol 22, Issue 1
Abstract
Introduction: Eating disorders are difficult to treat and the relapse rate after classical interventions is high. Recent models of bulimia nervosa stress the role of the negative beliefs about the self in the etiology of this disorder. Other studies consider the strategies people affected by bulimic symptoms use in order to cope with stress. The present paper aims at identifying early maladaptive schemas and behavioral coping mechanisms in young women exhibiting bulimic symptoms, as well as testing the interaction between the two categories of variables in relationship to the severity of the bulimic symptomatology. Objectives: a) to identify early maladaptive schemas and behavioral coping mechanisms associated with bulimic symptoms; b) to analyze the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and behavioral coping mechanisms that are relevant to bulimic symptomatology. Methods: 144 young women (m=20.21, SD=2.01) were investigated using EDI-3 (Eating Disorder Inventory 3), YSQ (Young Schema Questionnaire), SACS (Strategic Approach to Coping Scale) and PDSQ (The Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire) in a design including two clinical and one non-clinical research groups established by using cutoff scores in Bulimia scale of EDI-3 and PDSQ scales. Results: The results indicate that the participants reporting bulimic symptoms of high clinical relevance also have more severe abandonment, enmeshment, subjugation, emotional deprivation, and entitlement maladaptive schemas than the non-clinical group, with more pronounced abandonment, enmeshment, and subjugation schemas in the high clinical relevance group than in the group of typical clinical relevance. Participants in the high clinical relevance group use more frequently antisocial action and less frequently assertive action than controls. No moderating effects of the relationship between the abandonment schema and bulimic symptoms by behavioral coping mechanisms were identified. Conclusions: The implications are that early maladaptive schemas and behavioral coping strategies belong to different mechanisms developing and maintaining the bulimic symptoms and that they may not interact. Experiential findings concerning the abandonment schema, the development of a secure attachment style, and anger management strategies could be integrated so as to improve existing treatments for bulimia nervosa.
Authors and Affiliations
Roxana Radomir-Beliţoiu
Keywords
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