Emotion Awareness and Identification Skills in Adolescent Girls With Bulimia Nervosa

Abstract

This study examined emotion-identification skills in 19 adolescent girls (M age=16 years, 8 months) diagnosed with a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV], American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis of bulimia nervosa or eating disorder not otherwise specified in the bulimic spectrum, 19 age-matched girls with a DSM-IV diagnosis of unipolar depression, and 19 age-matched girls without a mental health history. Findings revealed that girls with bulimia nervosa compared to girls in the depressed and community control groups endorsed significantly greater reluctance to express emotions and inferior interoceptive awareness. Moreover, they exhibited significantly longer latencies to retrieve information regarding their emotional state in self-generated situations. When provided with a list of emotion labels, girls with bulimia endorsed significantly more labels to describe their responses to typical adolescent situations than girls in the control groups.