More than 50% of individuals with an eating disorder (ED) will readmit to treatment within 6 months of treatment discharge and often due to persistent cognitive ED pathology. Interventions addressing unremitted cognitive ED pathology following discharge from intensive treatment are crucial to prevent readmission. Imaginal exposure therapy facilitates the approach of feared stimuli not accessible in everyday life (e.g., rapidly gaining weight). In the current pilot randomized control trial (RCT), participants will be randomly assigned to a five-session online imaginal exposure condition (n = 65) or a control online writing and thinking intervention (n = 65) within a month of discharge from intensive treatment. Exposure participants write about and imagine an ED fear and control participants will write about their ED generally. We will examine the feasibility and acceptability of the treatment conditions and whether imaginal exposure is more effective in preventing readmission than the control condition. We will test the efficacy of the imaginal exposure treatment in reducing ED symptoms and fears of food and weight gain, and whether fear learning is a mechanism of change related to ED pathology. Ultimately, this research will lead to the development of an easily deployable readmission prevention treatment based on fear conditioning targets.
Keywords: eating disorders; fear learning; imaginal exposure; randomized controlled trial.
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