18/01/2025
I was honoured to have been invited to speak about Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) on Pat Marsh’s BBC Radio Kent show last year.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a severe mental health condition affecting 1 in 50. 1 in 3 of those commit su***de and yet it is often hidden.
BDD involves a significant preoccupation with one or more perceived flaws in appearance, which are unnoticeable or appear slight to others. It involves intrusive thoughts about ones appearance leading to increased self-focussed attention, excessive checking in mirrors, touching/picking skin, covering up features with clothes or excessive makeup, avoiding brightly lit places or going out or seeing friends, reassurance seeking, comparing one’s own appearance with others and sometimes frequent dermatological, dental or cosmetic treatments. It leads to significant distress, including anxiety and deep shame, and which impairs functioning in social, educational, occupational areas of life. A person’s sense of identity and value is fused with feelings about their appearance.
BDD is more likely to affect those who have experienced childhood trauma or neglect, teasing or bullying related to appearance, or a change to appearance e.g. having developed acne or scarring. Those who work in the arts where a higher value is placed on aesthetics, may also be more at risk.
A first step in recognising and changing BDD is
- Notice if you are overly focussed you are on a single or several aspects of your appearance. If you are concerned with particular features such as skin, nose, body shape or other body parts and your concerns are not solely to do with weight:
- Rate a) how self-focused you are on those aspects of your appearance when in-front of a mirror, talking to friends, and reading etc. using a 0-100 scale (100 = total focus on your appearance)
- Rate how focused you are on b) your task; c) your environment when you are in those situations using the 0-100 scale.
- Rate how distressed you feel about your appearance, using the same scale.
- Then, practise deliberately absorbing your attention away from your body and getting it into a valued activity such as dancing, listening to music, running etc.
- You can also try absorbing at least 80% of your attention into objects, colours, sounds.
- When you have absorbed your attention as fully as you can on your chosen activity, Re-rate how self-focused, task focused, and environment focused you are along with your level of distress on the same scale.
- What do you notice about the link between self-focused attention and your level of distress?
CBT is an effective treatment for BDD as it targets what keeps it going i.e. changing powerful negative appearance-related self-images, reducing checking and avoidance via Exposure Response Prevention (ERP), developing external focused attention, mirror training to challenge an attentional bias so the whole of the body is noticed rather than just one or two features.
+++ For a FREE 15 minute initial consultation with me please get in touch via the link above +++
For more information about BDD check out the following links where to get help
1. BDD Foundation: https://bddfoundation.org/
2. Arie Winograd Psychotherapist on how to recognise and treat BDD https://youtu.be/Q0hUf-psjcQ?si=txoD4XnZ7dKbenBW
3. For a list of other accredited CBT Therapists: UK CBT Register - https://babcp.com/CBTRegister/Search #/;
***deprevention
A psychotherapist and the founder and director of the Los Angeles BDD & Body Image Clinic, Arie has dedicated his career to working with people with BDD. In ...
