| Abstract: | The study reports the pre-post findings from a controlled comparative evaluation of treatments for bulimia nervosa. These pre-post results allow comparison of the hypnobehavioural and cognitive behavioural treatments with a waiting list control group and a comparison of the immediate effects of the two modalities. One hundred and thirty subjects were screened to enter the study. Seventy-eight subjects entered the investigation after being randomly allocated to either a waiting list control group, or to hypnobehavioural or cognitive behavioural groups. The treatments were delivered individually and matched in duration (8 weeks) and the number of sessions. Pre to posttreatment outcome indicated significant differences between the control group and the two treatments in reductions in bulimic behaviours and related eating pathology. The immediate effects of both treatments were equal. There were no differences at posttreatment between the treatments in abstinence from either bingeing or purging. The treatment effects were also similar to the immediate effects obtained by longer therapeutic approaches. |
