Mental health: Monsters in the mirror
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Nature, 08/10/2015
In this article, Professor Kathy Phillips and Professor Sabine Wilhelm discuss the way in which BDD manifests for different people, and just how difficult the condition can be to live with. BDD is characterised by a preoccupation with one or more aspects of a person's appearance. For example, one BDD sufferer may think that their eyebrows are asymmetrical. Another may be preoccupied with their lips, believing them to be either too fat or too thin, too big or too small. Another may believe their hairline is strange and ugly. In fact, any body part or feature could be the focus of concern, dissatisfaction, and preoccupation in BDD, and many people with the condition have multiple body parts or features that they dislike and obsess about. The focus of concern can also shift over time. Indeed, this was the case for Jessica, whom the article writes about.
Jessica's bodily preoccupation began with the frizziness of her hair when in middle school, and shifted to her nose when in high school. The article also describes how she harboured an intense dislike of her hands and facial skin, among other features.
The article goes on to discuss some of the research into BDD that has been conducted over recent years, including research into psychological treatments, genetics, and neurobiology (i.e. what happens in the brain to cause BDD). Importantly, scientific evidence continues to amass, showing that psychological therapy is effective for many people with BDD.
Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for BDD. A key part of CBT for BDD "involves exposing people to the thoughts and situations that create intense anxiety for them. Patients then learn how to face the anxiety without engaging in the behaviours that reinforce and maintain their symptoms." This is called 'exposure and response prevention' (also known as 'exposure and ritual prevention'), or ERP.
Jessica undertook this kind of therapy with an experienced psychologist and "thanks to the coping tools she learned for dealing with unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaviour, Jessica often goes entire days without her cosmetic defences. 'CBT has been tremendously successful for me,' she says. 'There are certain scenarios where these cycles of negative thoughts will increase in frequency. But now I have the skills to put the kibosh on them.'"
Jessica's therapy was "so successful that she rarely dwells on her appearance for more than about 30 minutes per day — a massive reduction from the 10 hours she was spending."
If you would like to achieve these sorts of changes, get in touch with the Sydney BDD and Body Image Clinic today.
Nature, 08/10/2015
In this article, Professor Kathy Phillips and Professor Sabine Wilhelm discuss the way in which BDD manifests for different people, and just how difficult the condition can be to live with. BDD is characterised by a preoccupation with one or more aspects of a person's appearance. For example, one BDD sufferer may think that their eyebrows are asymmetrical. Another may be preoccupied with their lips, believing them to be either too fat or too thin, too big or too small. Another may believe their hairline is strange and ugly. In fact, any body part or feature could be the focus of concern, dissatisfaction, and preoccupation in BDD, and many people with the condition have multiple body parts or features that they dislike and obsess about. The focus of concern can also shift over time. Indeed, this was the case for Jessica, whom the article writes about.
Jessica's bodily preoccupation began with the frizziness of her hair when in middle school, and shifted to her nose when in high school. The article also describes how she harboured an intense dislike of her hands and facial skin, among other features.
The article goes on to discuss some of the research into BDD that has been conducted over recent years, including research into psychological treatments, genetics, and neurobiology (i.e. what happens in the brain to cause BDD). Importantly, scientific evidence continues to amass, showing that psychological therapy is effective for many people with BDD.
Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, has been demonstrated to be an effective treatment for BDD. A key part of CBT for BDD "involves exposing people to the thoughts and situations that create intense anxiety for them. Patients then learn how to face the anxiety without engaging in the behaviours that reinforce and maintain their symptoms." This is called 'exposure and response prevention' (also known as 'exposure and ritual prevention'), or ERP.
Jessica undertook this kind of therapy with an experienced psychologist and "thanks to the coping tools she learned for dealing with unhelpful patterns of thinking and behaviour, Jessica often goes entire days without her cosmetic defences. 'CBT has been tremendously successful for me,' she says. 'There are certain scenarios where these cycles of negative thoughts will increase in frequency. But now I have the skills to put the kibosh on them.'"
Jessica's therapy was "so successful that she rarely dwells on her appearance for more than about 30 minutes per day — a massive reduction from the 10 hours she was spending."
If you would like to achieve these sorts of changes, get in touch with the Sydney BDD and Body Image Clinic today.