Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa
Brief Program Description
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa is a manualized, three-phase outpatient individual therapy approach aimed at reducing binging, purging, and dysfunctional concerns about weight and improving interpersonal functioning among patients with bulimia nervosa. Patients attend 19 50-minute sessions over a period of 20 weeks, twice weekly for the first 2 weeks, weekly for the next 12 weeks, and biweekly for the last 6 weeks. The first phase involves educating patients about bulimia nervosa and the processes that maintain it. In this phase, therapists help patients to eat more regularly and to resist the urge to binge or purge. Patients make detailed records of eating, disordered behaviors, and related events and thoughts. In the second phase, cognitive and behavioral procedures are used to identify and correct dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors. The third phase focuses on how to maintain change and prevent relapse.
The intervention has been tested on ethnically diverse samples of adult women recruited from the areas near Columbia University and Stanford University. In a random trial with an interpersonal therapy control group, cognitive-behavior therapy patients were more likely to have recovered and to have improved eating attitudes and behaviors at posttest. Recovery rates remained high at 4-month, 8-month, and 12-month follow-up.
Contact Information
For indepth information on this program, please use the contact listed below.
Program Developer
W. Stewart Agras, M.D.Professor of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Phone: (650) 725-5735
Email: sagras@leland.stanford.edu
In September 2004, this program was designated as an Effective Program under SAMHSA's previous National Registry of Effective Prevention Programs system.