Evidence for attenuated affective processing in obesity.

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn (M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight (M age = 43.6, SD = 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.

Patients with obesity show reduced memory for others' body shape.

Social comparison theory assumes that individuals regularly compare themselves to others and that the comparisons are relevant for their self-esteem. For individuals with obesity, these social comparisons will yield a negative outcome with respect to body shape in the majority of social contacts. It is proposed that, when confronted with other persons, individuals with obesity avoid social comparisons on the dimension of body shape. Using a multinomial account of social categorization, 19 female psychotherapy patients with morbid obesity were compared to 19 non-obese female psychotherapy patients. As predicted, results reveal reduced memory for body shape categories in patients with obesity, indicating a reduced processing of body shape information.

[Impact of an additional behavioral anxiety intervention on therapy outcome in a psychodynamic inpatient setting]. / Verbessert die zusätzliche Durchführung einer verhaltenstherapeutischen Intervention die Ergebnisse stationärer psychodynamischer Therapie bei Panikstörung/Agoraphobie?

This naturalistic study aimed at evaluating the implementation of an additional symptom-oriented intervention program for patients with panic disorder and/or agoraphobia in a psychodynamic inpatient setting. Patients receiving this intervention showed a significantly better therapy outcome as measured by the symptom-specific scales of the SCL-90-R compared to anxiety patients who had not undergone this additional treatment. This specific improvement was stronger than the general improvement found in therapy outcome over time. Our findings show that the combination of different treatment strategies in one setting may prove effective. However, some problems are discussed which may emerge in clinical practice.