Guided imagery treatment to promote self-soothing in bulimia nervosa. A theoretical rationale.

Bulimia nervosa (BN) has been described as involving impairment in affect regulation and in self-soothing. Such a conceptualization suggests the need to design treatments that specifically target these problems in order to assist individuals with BN in comforting themselves. A model of guided imagery therapy suggests that imagery therapy has multiple levels of action and can assist these individuals in the regulation of affect by providing an external source of soothing and also by enhancing self-soothing. The authors illustrate the model with a case example and report the results of a study in a clinical sample of BN.