Cognitive distortions amongst women experiencing bulimic episodes

A self‐report questionnaire was devised to assess cognitive distortions of a general depressogenic nature and ones specifically related to concerns about food, eating, shape, and weight. This questionnaire was administered to three groups: those established by interview to experience bulimic episodes, those reporting bulimic episodes on a self‐report questionnaire (but not confirmed by interview), and controls. The group definitely experiencing bulimic episodes was found to differ from the others in terms of the extent of personalization, overgeneralization, catastrophization, and selective abstraction in relation to themes concerning food, eating, shape, and weight. This difference remained when the effect of more general depressogenic distortions was removed statistically.