Illness anxiety and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder: Cognitive-behavioral conceptualization and treatment

• Case overview of a woman diagnosed with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
• Summary of effective treatment in this woman with conditioned avoidance of eating.
• Review of a model of avoidance and its association with the psychological disorders described in this case.
• Encourage the important of working together as an interdisciplinary team.

Eating difficulties are commonly present in medical and psychiatric settings. Some eating problems are resultant from fears about food consumption and can be conceptualized as anxiety disorders conditioned by perception of feared outcomes associated with eating and maintained by avoidance. The authors present a case in which a female patient with limited food intake is successfully treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy. Illness anxiety disorder and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, both newly included in DSM-V, are applied in this case.