Guided Self-Help for Binge Eating Disorder

The focus of this proposal is on BED among an adult population. Guided self-help treatments (GSH) for BED appear promising and may be more readily disseminated than efficacious specialty treatments such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) given the latter's administration costs and time requirements. The proposed study uses a new group-based, guided self-help BED treatment called Integrative Response Therapy (IRT). IRT is primarily based upon the affect regulation theory of binge eating (e.g., binge eating is an attempt to alter distressing emotional states), while adding cognitive restructuring techniques. IRT teaches effective ways to cope with aversive emotions and reframe faulty cognitions while reducing vulnerabilities that are likely to lead to problematic emotional responding \& cognitions such as physical needs (e.g., hunger, sleep deprivation), interpersonal conflict, and, when possible, unpleasant external events. IRT's primary goal is to significantly decrease episodes of binge eating and associated eating disorder pathology. CBT-GSH is a frequently used manual-based form of GSH that has demonstrated efficacy. CBT, based on the restraint model, intervenes via behavioral techniques to replace restrained eating with more regular eating patterns and cognitive techniques to restructure an individual's problematic thoughts that over-evaluate shape and weight. Research literature indicates that CBT-GSH is a viable self-help BED treatment that appears to be superior to wait-list control conditions, equivalent to IPT, a specialty treatment, and superior to Behavioral Weight Loss treatment at 2-year follow-up. There are then, a number of reasons for further research on GSH in general and CBT-gsh specifically. The proposed study will lay the groundwork for identifying which GSH treatment should be investigated in a subsequent, larger trial that would evaluate a clinically relevant algorithm for the treatment of BED.