Recent research indicates that a significant number of college-age women suffer from bulimarexia (also called the gorging-purging syndrome, the binge-purge cycle, bulimia or bulimia nervosa). To examine the relationship of three personality variables (anxiety, assertiveness, and locus of control) to eating disorders, 46 college students participated in a study. Subjects were divided into three groups: 13 subjects were in eating disorders therapy; 15 subjects were in group therapy; and 18 subjects were psychology students, serving as controls. Both before and after either the course of therapy or the semester of academic class meetings, subjects completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the College Self-Expression Scale, and the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. An analysis of the results showed that at both pre-testing and post-testing, there were highly significant differences between groups on measures of state and trait anxiety and assertiveness, but not on the measure of internal-external locus of control. Means were ordered with members of the eating disorders group at the high (most anxious) end, members of the general therapy group in the middle, and control group members at the least anxious end of the scales. Follow-up tests indicated that, at both pre-testing and post-testing, those with eating disorders were more anxious, both state and trait, than those in the control group, and group therapy members were more anxious, state and trait, than those in the control group. On the measure of assertiveness, those with eating disorders showed less assertiveness than members of the therapy group or the control group. (BL)