Group schema therapy for eating disorders

Many people with an eating disorder are advised to receive CBT-E (cognitive behavioral therapy). This treatment focuses on normalizing eating patterns and weight and tackling maintenance processes. Even though this treatment works well for a certain group of patients, for another group of patients it is presumably not the most optimal treatment. We do not know in advance for whom this treatment will work well and for whom it won’t. 

What we do know is that an eating disorder is often accompanied by other psychological complaints such as depression, anxiety and/or personality problems. In schema therapy the idea is that an eating disorder and possible other problems are the result of deeply rooted core beliefs about yourself, others, and the world. For example the belief that you are not good enough or that others will leave you anyway. Schema therapy addresses these thoughts in order to tackle the problem. 

We want to investigate whether group schema therapy is a good alternative for those eating disorder patients in whom CBT-E does not quickly shows an effect. Ultimately we hope the research will contribute to improving care for people with an eating disorder.

Every participant starts out with four weeks of individual CBT-E. Before and after the 4 weeks we wil measure your symptoms with an eating disorder questionnaire. Is there already a marked treatment effect? Then there is a good chance that CBT-E will work well for you. The study stops for you and you will continue with the CBT-E treatment as usual.
But is the treatment effect not that clear yet? Then you will be randomly assigned to either continue with CBT-E or to switch to group schema therapy. We think that both treatments can work well for you, even if there is no clear effect of CBT-E after 4 weeks, but we want to investigate which of the treatments works best.

This research project is a collaboration between University of Maastricht, Utrecht University, University of Groningen, Amarum, Co-eur and Accare. If you participate in the study, you will be in contact with your therapist at Accare and with the GST-EAT research team in Maastricht.