The Transdiagnostic View of Eating Disorders

The Transdiagnostic View on the Eating Disorders

Figure: The transdiagnostic view on the processes that maintain eating disorder psychopathology

The transdiagnostic view on the processes that maintain eating disorder psychopathology (Fairburn, Cooper and Shafran, 2003) is based on the observation that the main maintaining processes are likely to be largely the same across different eating disorder diagnoses. Therefore, if these maintaining processes can be disrupted in one eating disorder it should be possible to disrupt them in other eating disorders. Hence the Centre for Research on Eating Disorders at Oxford (CREDO) team reconceptualised the existing evidence-based form of CBT for bulimia nervosa and adapted it to make it suitable for all forms of eating disorders.

The result was the development of a new transdiagnostic cognitive behavioural treatment called Enhanced CBT (CBT-E).

Further Reading

Fairburn, C. G., Cooper, Z., & Shafran, R. (2003) Cognitive behaviour therapy for eating disorders: A “transdiagnostic” theory and treatment. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 41, 509-528.