Hanna Melles

Maastricht University | UM · Department of Clinical Psychological Science

When evaluating ambiguous situations, humans sometimes use their behavior as a source of information (behavior-as-information effect) and interpret safety behaviors as evidence for danger. Accordingly, we hypothesized that eating disorder safety behaviors (restrictive eating, body checking, etc.) might aggravate fear and anxiety in individuals with...

Exposure therapy is known to be an effective intervention in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders. In eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, anxiety and avoidance are identified as maintenance factors. Therefore, they may constitute an important treatment target, suitable for the use of exposure therapy. Remarkably, exposure techniques t...

Background Fears and avoidance behaviors are common symptoms of eating disorders. It was investigated whether different eating disorder diagnoses are equally characterized by similar fears and avoidance behaviors. Methods Individuals with self-reported eating disorders (n = 250) and healthy controls (n = 95) completed online questionnaires assessi...

Anorexia Nervosa is a severe and disabling mental disorder and a huge challenge to treat. Intense fears of e.g., food, eating, weight gain and social evaluation are core features of anorexia nervosa and obstacles during treatment. The perceived threats trigger avoidance and safety behaviors like highly restrictive eating, strict eating rules, vomit...