اثر تحلیلی و تجربی خود تمرکز بر واکنش پذیری شناختی ناشی از استرس در آسیب شناسی روانی اختلال خوردن

Previous research suggests distinct modes of self-focus, each with distinct functional properties: Analytical self-focus appears maladaptive, with experiential self-focus having more adaptive effects on indices of cognitive-affective functioning (e.g., Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds, 2008). The authors applied this framework to eating disorder (ED) psychopathology and manipulated the mode of self-focus prior to exposure to a stressor (imagining eating a large meal; Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, & Rachman, 1999). Study 1 showed that students high in ED psychopathology reported lower post-stressor feelings of weight or shape change and less subsequent attempts to neutralise (e.g., imagining exercising) after experiential relative to analytical self-focus. Study 2 found that partially weight restored patients with anorexia nervosa had lower post-stressor estimates of their own weight and reported lower urge to cancel stressor effects following experiential compared to analytical self-focus. Experiential self-focus was also followed by less neutralisation than analytical self-focus. Results suggest that the mode of self-focus affects cognitive reactivity following a stressor in individuals with ED psychopathology. Examining the mode within which individuals with ED psychopathology focus on self and body may raise important implications for understanding of psychopathology and open new possibilities for augmenting current treatments.

Much of mental experience is concerned with focussing on physical and psychological aspects of self. As the literature on cognitive biases in psychological disorders exemplifies (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 2005), there are differences between individuals in the subject of this mental activity. An emerging body of research has also highlighted differences in the way self-focus is engaged in, besides differences in its content. This research has raised the critical idea that it is not sufficient to consider self-focus as a single, monolithic state but that it may be necessary to discriminate between different types of self-focus. In particular, investigation of ways one can direct attention to subjective experience has suggested a distinction between two modes of self-focus: analytical/ruminative vs. experiential ( Teasdale, 1999, Watkins and Teasdale, 2001 and Watkins and Teasdale, 2004).