Abstracts Womens Studies

Core conflictual relationship themes of women with bulimia symptoms

by Deborah Marie Sharp

Bulemia nervosa is an eating disorder which is the cause for much concern. Women with bulemia tend to be depressed, unable to form satisfying relationshios, susceptible to unusual ways of thinking, and impulsive. Interpersonal relationships are the focus of several theories of bulemia, inding psychoanalytic disorder, psychodynamic perspectives (Bruch 1985; Fenione 1945; Sours 1980, Yarook 1993). The Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT, Luborsky, 1977) was developed to study interpersonal relationship patterns in therapy and research contexts and provides a way to formulate relationship themes in terms of predominant Wish, Response of Other, and Response of Self, based on narratives told by the participant. Women from introductory psychology classes were screened using the Bulemia Test-Revised (BULIT-R, Thelen, Farmer, Wonderlich, & Smith, 1991), and were retested individually. Women who scored 85 or above on both administrations were considered symptomatic (BS group), and women who scored within one-half standard deviation of the sample mean were considered not symptomatic (NS group). Eighteen women in the BS group and 23 women in the NS group were interviewed (RAP, Luborsky & Crits-Christoph, 1990) and CCRT's were derived. More of the Responses of Other were negative for women in the BS group than for women with mean scores on the BULIT-R (61% vs. 31%; x^2 [2, N = 41] = 3.86; p < .05). Women in both groups talked most about friends (32% of narratives), and had a Wish of "To be loved and understood" (73% of Wishes).