The Effectiveness of Emotion-Focused Therapy On Anxiety, Depression and Difficulty in Emotion Regulation in Binge Eating Disorder

Objective: the purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion-focused therapy on depression, anxiety, and difficulty in emotion regulation in women with binge eating disorder. Methods: This study was quasi-experimental with pretest posttest and a 2-month follow-up with a control group. The population consisted of all female clients visiting the obesity clinics in Tehran in 2019. 40 patients were selected by purposeful sampling and were randomly divided into two groups of 20: one for the control group and another for the experimental group. The experimental group participated in 10 intervention sessions of one hour and a half. Research tools included Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventory, Difficulty in Emotion Regulation and Binge Eating Scale which were administered before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and repeated measure analysis of variance by SPSS-21. Results: Emotion-focused group therapy in the experimental group at the post-test and follow-up levels significantly(p<0/05) reduced the mean anxiety, depression, emotional difficulty and overeating index in Patients with binge eating disorder. Conclusion: The results showed that emotion-focused therapy was effective in improving anxiety, depression, difficulty in emotion regulation and binge eating disorder syndrome and the results remained consistent in the follow-up. Therefore, it is recommended that those approaches be used in the treatment of binge eating disorder which focus on emotion regulation, as they lead to more lasting results.