Therapy motivation in anorexia nervosa: theory and first empirical results

Anorexia nervosa patients are considered to be unmotivated for psychotherapy of eating disorders, because they present a lack of understanding and feeling for their disease. In order to objectify this lack of therapy motivation we formulated two questionnaires for patients and therapists. The items were obtained from 15 theoretically determined fields of both intra- and interpersonal subsets of motivation, and a 'motivation profile' was gained. In a first clinical application these profiles are obtained from an anorexia sample at the beginning and at the end of an inpatient treatment and combined with the corresponding therapist ratings. The results are compared with two control groups (preattended psychosomatics and somatic patients). Results collected hereby are used for the improvement of our questionnaires and for suggestions concerning further studies.