Video-feedback and personal attribution in anorexic, depressed and normal viewers

Video-feedback has been shown to be particularly influential in changing bodily awareness and causal attribution by confronting participants with a concrete 'public' self-image. Body-image disturbance and denial are major aspects of patients suffering with anorexia nervosa. It was predicted that video-feedback should alter these attitudes in this group and result in a more realistic self-appraisal. Anorexics respond to video-feedback with a reduction in self-esteem whereas normal controls displayed an increase in self-esteem and depressed patients perceived themselves negatively both before and after video-feedback. It is concluded that video-feedback may prove to be a useful technique in the treatment of body-image disturbance in anorexic patients.