Group therapy with bulimic women: A self-psychological approach

✍ Scribed by Barth, Diane ;Wurman, Victoria

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 686 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0276-3478
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-108x(198605)5:4<735::aid-eat2260050412>3.0.co;2-e

✦ Synopsis

Long-term psychodynamic group therapy is an important tool in the process of engaging bulimic women in treatment and in helping them work through both the symptom and the underlying characterological problems of the disorder. The authors utilize concepts from self-psychology, particularly "selfobject" needs and the therapist's empathic stance, to explain some of the dynamics of bulimia and the ways in which group therapy addresses them. An example from one of the authors' groups demonstrates this. The multiple selfobject transferences that develop in a group, coupled with the therapist's empathic interpretations, fostered the development of internal structure that explains the bulimic's gradual ability to dispense with her symptoms. The authors believe that groups provide a setting in which that structure can be developed.

As an increasing number of women with the diagnosis of bulimia are treated in psychotherapy, the evidence that group therapy is an important tool with which to help them is also increasing (Boskind-White &