Lose yourself: feared self, emotion regulation, and obsessive-compulsive and eating disorder symptomatology

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Feared self refers to an individual’s “possible” self that has undesired qualities or characteristics and has been linked to obsessive compulsive symptoms. However, feared self may also relate to eating disorder pathology, given the importance of views of self in the disorder.

Method

This questionnaire-based study in a non-clinical sample (N = 238) examined whether a feared self would independently predict the symptom severity of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and eating disorders (ED), while controlling for potential comorbidity of the respective symptoms. A secondary aim was to examine whether emotion regulation moderated the relationship between a feared self and OCD symptoms and a feared self and ED symptoms.

Results

Feared self was a significant unique predictor of symptoms of both disorders. Emotion regulation was not found to significantly moderate the relationship between feared self and either OCD or ED symptoms, although emotion regulation was a significant independent predictor of the respective symptoms.

Conclusions

The study is one of the first to show that a feared self uniquely predicts ED symptoms, over-and-above coexisting OCD symptoms. As such, the results provide support for feared self as a potential transdiagnostic factor. Implications and limitations are discussed.

KEY POINTS

What is already known about this topic:

1. Feared self is increasingly linked with OCD and body dysmorphic symptoms.

2. Given the importance of self, it may also relate to eating disorder symptoms.

3. Emotion regulation has been linked with psychopathology, but the interaction with feared self has not been explored.

What this topic adds:

1. The results support feared self as a potential transdiagnostic factor for OCD and eating disorders.

2. The specific type of feared self differed in terms of the most relevant predictor for the different disorders.

3. Emotion regulation predicted both disorders but did not moderate feared self.

KEYWORDS:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• eating disorders (ED)
• feared self
• fear of self
• emotion regulation
• inference-based cognitive-behavioural model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of the research, due to ethical reasons, supporting data is not available.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2024.2342808.