佐々木, 淳

Sasaki, Jun

In recent years, the importance of self-esteem has received considerable attention in treatments for bulimia nervosa. However, a detailed discussion has not yet been conducted on strategies for improving patients’ self-esteem. Therefore, we have developed a group therapy program to improve the self-esteem of patients with bulimia nervosa. In the present research, we performed a qualitative study to reveal the process of change in their self-esteem as well as their symptoms that occurred through the therapy. After the group therapy, semi-structured interviews were held with three adult female Japanese outpatients diagnosed as having bulimia nervosa (with the mean age of 30.3 +/- 3.2 years). On Rosenberg’s (1965) self-esteem scale, their score was 18.7 +/- 7.8 points. Twenty categories were exhibited by analyzing the interviews using a modified grounded theory approach. Their narratives suggest the effectiveness of the group therapy. For example, “I sometimes feel I’m good enough” implies improvement of their self-esteem, and “In my daily life, I notice changes occurred with me” suggests improvement in their bulimic symptoms. The effectiveness seems to result from the qualitative change in their resignation. It was suggested that “resigning themselves positively” is important, and patients started to accept this in the group therapy by “tackling the works in the case formulation” or “sharing their experiences with sympathy.”

佐々木, 淳