Safe and Sound: Is Safeness a Specific Affective Dimension Related to Eating Disorder Behaviors?

Objective: Safeness is a warm, soothing emotional state that is often experienced in the presence of close others. Safeness is distinct from other positive emotions or the absence of negative emotions and predicts mental health variables over and above other emotions. The current study investigated the unique role of safeness in relation to eating disorder symptoms. Method: Participants with eating disorders (n = 164) and those with no history of an eating disorder (n = 49) completed two weeks of ecological momentary assessment to measure affect and eating disorder symptoms. Results: Safeness emerged as an emotional state distinct from negative and positive affect that demonstrated a relationship with the presence (versus absence) of an eating disorder. Safeness did not predict the occurrence of eating disorder behaviors in real-time when accounting for other emotions. However, binge eating episodes resulted in improvements in safeness, but not improvements in other emotions, suggesting that safeness might be uniquely implicated in the maintenance of binge eating. Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of targeting safeness in eating disorder treatments.