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The literature review investigates recent advances in psychological treatments for anorexia nervosa (AN) in children, adolescents, and adults. Treatment studies are generally limited by small sample sizes and uncontrolled research designs. In adolescence, there is some evidence for Maudsley Family Therapy (MFT). Inpatient care or specialist outpatient care are not superior to routine community treatment in adolescents, which has implications for service delivery. In adults, the findings are more mixed. One approach is not clearly superior to another. Future research using control and comparison groups with larger samples are needed to explore several approaches outlined in this review in more detail. The empirical paper describes an exploration of the effects of short-term fasting on tasks measuring cognitive flexibility and information processing in a nonclinical sample. Findings from Bolton, Burgess, Gilbert and Serpell (in preparation) who reported that short-term fasting impaired the ability to shift mental set were replicated. Short-term fasting was also associated with weaker central coherence. These findings suggest that any model proposing cognitive rigidity and weak central coherence as endophenotypes of AN may also need to account for the role of starvation. The critical appraisal explores some of the limitations of the research project. In particular the limitations of working with a nonclinical sample and of using novel experimental tasks are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to obtain information about human service workers: who they are, (demographics), how satisfied they are (job satisfaction), and what they do (job functions). This information is intended to assist educators in improving paraprofessional training programs. The Human Service Worker Inventory was developed and disseminated to the experimentally accessible population, human service workers from all appropriate human services agencies (N = 13) in the Placerville area of ElDorado County, California. Research questions focused on the demographics, job satisfaction, and job functions of paraprofessional workers within these agencies. Data from the 136 returned Inventories were analyzed, and produced the following statistically significant results: Chi-square test of goodness-of-fit indicated a predominance of female human service workers. Chi-square test of independence indicated that private agency respondents both had a lower educational level and performed six referralrelated job functions less often; public agency respondents had more work experience; non-profit respondents performed more ·group counseling. Two analyses of variance (ANOVA) also provided significant results: higher job satisfaction of non-profit agency respondents and a difference in the pattern of responses to job functions. A multiple linear regression indicated that a significant positive correlation existed.