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Psychological impact on body dysmorphic disorder
Psychological impact on body dysmorphic disorder
Psychological impact on body dysmorphic disorder
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In today’s society, body image is a very important aspect of media and popular culture. Celebrities and models are plastered everywhere and often portray very unrealistic body standards. Young women are the main demographic that is affected by such out-of-reach image ideals. In Suzannia’s case, she seems to be primarily suffering from body dysmorphic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Many of the actions and symptoms that Suzannia performs and experiences are an overlap of these two different diagnoses. Although body dysmorphic disorder and OCD range in many between forms, Suzannia’s case specifically relates to her nose. According to the DSM-5, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is defined as having “...preoccupation with one or more …show more content…
Medically speaking, taping down her nose would not change its shape permanently, but she does it to make her feel less anxious and give her a sense of relief with the thought that it could possibly become smaller from this action. By doing such, Suzannia is displaying the abnormal compulsive symptoms related to OCD. Compulsions are defined as “repetitive behaviors or mental acts that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession,” (Kearny and Trull, 2014). Clearly, viewing her nose in a mirror causes her to have obsessive thoughts regarding how big it may seem, thus, she is compelled to push it down or use tape whenever possible. This relieves her anxieties temporarily until her obsessive thoughts occur repeat within a short time span and, yet again, fuels a cycle of …show more content…
This cohesive form of therapy encompasses treatments that are based on “the connection between thinking patterns, emotions, and behavior and… techniques to change dysfunctional thinking patterns,” (Kearny and Trull, 2014). Cognitive behavioral therapy strives to change the way people think and behave through connections with both intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. Although there is not much information provided regarding her familial life and its possible effects on Suzannia’s self image, it seems as though most of her abnormal thoughts regarding her nose is an intrapersonal issue. Both her OCD and BDD have manifested from her perceived ideas of how she personally believes she appears to be. Others around her are not observant of her nose imperfections but rather, her odd behaviors. Fortunately, Suzannia’s professor has taken notice to the symptoms and encouraged her to seek help. Since she is isolated from friends due to her fear of being judged, it was unlikely that they would have noticed the symptoms and intervene. The therapist could help Suzannia deal with her body dysmorphia through elaborating on issues regarding unrealistic body standards within our culture and promoting body positivity. In addition, Suzannia can work on dealing with her obsessions regarding her nose and controlling her unnecessary
Jeannette’s timid nature is a shared characteristic that we both share. This was evident through her reluctance to take off her dress while she was at the community pool with her classmate, Dinitia and other women. She was self-conscious about her body and the scar that was on her ribs as a result from an accident she had at three years old cooking hot dogs. After a few moments of encouraging herself, she was able to take off her dress and put on a bathing suit. Like Jeannette, I have struggled with shyness when it comes to body image. I started puberty at eight years old, and the children I went to school with, were relentless in teasing me about having to wear a bra. This caused my self-esteem to plummet and lead me to bind my chest with tape
In today society, beauty in a woman seems to be the measured of her size, or the structure of her nose and lips. Plastic surgery has become a popular procedure for people, mostly for women, to fit in social class, race, or beauty. Most women are insecure about their body or face, wondering if they are perfect enough for the society to call the beautiful; this is when cosmetic surgery comes in. To fix what “needed” to be fixed. To begin with, there is no point in cutting your face or your body to add or remove something most people call ugly. “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery” explored the desire of human to become beyond perfection by the undergoing plastic surgery. The author, Camille Pagalia, took a look how now days how Americans are so obsessed
The nature of the disorder makes it difficult to treat, since patients are convinced that they suffer from a real and serious medical problem. Indeed, the mere su...
As the modern world has changed, the idea of what is beautiful has changed as well. Since the middle of the last century, female adolescents have developed an obsession with their weight and how their body should look according to what is depicted in the media. As a result, this obsession has turned dangerous. Stress is placed on thinness to the point where looking normal is being underweight. Such a body image has become perfection. This is not only seen on television, in live action movies, and in animation, but in real life as well. For example, in the animated film, “Shrek”, Princess Fiona is an attractive slender woman during the day. However, at night she becomes an overweight, hideous ogre (Kovar, 2009). This indicates to young impressionable females that thin means beautiful and being overweight means not being attractive. Due to such images, an increase in body dissatisfaction and the development of eating disorders have put the health and lives of some young female teenagers in jeopardy (Van Vonderen, & Kinnally, 2012).
Body image has primarily been a problem for females. Recently, however, this view has opened up and has been seen in males. While women fixate on looking thin and slim, men’s obsessions are on the opposite spectrum, where guys want to be big, thick, and muscular. First known as "reverse anorexia", and now properly called muscle dysmorphia this obsessive compulsive disorder makes individuals believe that they are small and muscularly undeveloped and meanwhile they are moderately or highly muscular. This disorder is mostly seen in males and is rather unhealthy because it raises potential for self-esteem issues, steroid abuse, anti-social attitude, stress, over-meticulous diets and workout plans, and in worst case scenarios, suicide. In our society ideal body image for males has been put up to an impossible pedestal and the examples for the perfect physique are worsened by media causing this disorder to grow even further.
Like most people, Terri has never heard of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Although Terri’s body concerns may not constitute the disorder, there are people among us living with the secretive, shameful reality of BDD. WHAT IS a BDD? Few people have ever heard of BDD, but virtually everyone has exhibited the characteristics of the disorder in its most basic form: a heightened concern with a particular part of their body that they deem “less than perfect,” something that they would like to improve upon, and even something that they try to hide. Unlike normal appearance concerns, however, BDD is marked by an intense preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance.
In the article, “Inside the Wrong Body” by Carrie Arnold the main topic of study is about interoceptionability in humans. According to Carrie, interoceptionsimply is the knowledge of one’s internal bodily functions (Arnold, 2012). In other words, it is an explanation of an individual’s ability to be able to understand their internal body functions and relate it to the external images. Generally, this topic of study is very important since it helps individuals understand the reason why their bodies. For instance, the study simply tries to educate people on the importance of having high interoceptionability. Hence, informing people that by knowing their inner selves and bodily functions they are capable of having good health because one can recognize any form of hazard to one’s body faster. Certainly, researches decided to investigate this study, so that it could help them understand the reasons why certain people have anorexia nervosa, eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder and most importantly the reason why certain individuals do not accept their outward appearance the way others do. This essay attempts to review and evaluate the article “Inside the Wrong Body” which is about the interoceptionability in humans.
When someone already has a bad perception of him or herself, it is hard to turn around that type of thinking. The best solution to this problem is to take the troubled individual to a doctor for a proper evaluation and mental help. Once at the doctors, they will be given special assistance in improving the corrupted mentality. Tips will be given to improve their body image and to make them feel comfortable once again. According to Michelle J. New, PhD, “the main goal is make the patient realize that this is the body you are given, and if you are at a healthy state, it doesn’t matter what size or shape it comes in” (2012). Making the patient identify what aspects of their body they can’t physically change and which one’s they can change is helpful during the healing process. If there are features that they can change about themselves, healthy exercises and dieting tips will be given. If the patient stops the negative comments about themselves and says three nice compliments each day, self-confidence will boost
Social pressure to have a perfect body is experienced by many women and young girls. The perfect body has been constructed by society and by the media and women and girls is expected to conform to it. “The American Anorexia and Bulimia Association states that: 1000 American women die of anorexia each year and that people with eating disorders have the second highest fatality rate of the psychological disorders”. Women are dying each year because of body image disturbance disorders and discovering the link between media images and perfect body image could be helpful in finding a successful intervention.
People now a days have a problem with the way they appear. For hundreds of years, people, especially females, have been concerned with their weight, the way they look, and the way people perceive them. In the article, Do You Have a Body Image Problem? author Dr. Katharine A. Phillips discusses the concerns with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Dr. Phillips uses her knowledge or ethics to discuss the effects that BDD has on people today. She also uses emotion to show the reader how people are seriously affected by this disorder. In Dr. Phillips article, she discusses how people are emotionally and socially affected by the body dysmorphic disorder, and how society is also affected by it.
Personality disorders fall under axis 11 of the DSM-IV. This section includes borderline, schizoid, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive and avoidant disorders. There are several disorders included in axis 11 but for our purposes we will mostly be dealing with the disorders listed above. The most common personality disorder found among patients with eating disorders is borderline disorder. The majority of the research deals with borderline disorder, a disorder that is characterized by "vulnerability to a range of impulsive behaviors (overeating, shoplifting, substance abuse) and a history of self-destructive behavior, includi...
Flipping through the pages of Vogue's latest edition, 23 year-old Susan seems quite upset. She struggles with the thought of lacking the perfect body and delicate features in order to be considered attractive. Surprisingly, Susan is not alone in this kind of an internal struggle. In contemporary society, every other woman aspires to have the lips of Angelina Jolie and the perfect jaw line of Keira Knightley. Society today looks down upon individuals that do not fit in, whether in terms of body shape or facial attractiveness. This forces them to consider the option of 'ordering beauty.' Since cosmetic surgery is no longer a social taboo in America given its widespread popularity, more people are promoting it which ultimately affects the rest of the world due to the unwavering influence of American culture. Cosmetic surgery should be deterred in the US because it promotes the idea of valuing appearance over ability, gives rise to unrealistic expectations, and brings with it high cost to society.
To many, the notion of a teenager undergoing plastic surgery is appalling and unbelievable. For others, such as eleven-year-old Julia, a nose job was able to help her lead a happier and more normal life. To eighteen-year-old Kristen a breast augmentation is a traditional rite of passage of the family. She claims that she “just wanted to look normal,” and that after surgery, she does. (Sweeny, 2009) In these types of cases, cosmetic surgery can be beneficial to the confidence of teenagers in what Ann Kearney-Cooke calls “an epidemic of low self-esteem among girls.” (Sweeney, 2009) Whether it is a physical deformity, such as protruding ears, or simply a lack of something that other peers have, such as large breasts, cosmetic surgery can help teenagers cope with self-worth in a world where beauty is ridiculously selective. However, aside from the confidence-boosting possibilities resulting from teen cosmetic surgery, there are many reasons why it should not be taken lightly for an adolescent. Although cosmetic surgery can potentially be beneficial, there are also many extreme risks for teenagers, including medical complications and in some rare cases death, and thus should be solely a last resort after meticulous analysis for serious cases. Furthermore, neither the adolescent brain nor body is even fully developed.
There has been a substantial increase in cosmetic surgery being performed on individuals to enhance their looks leading to perception of beauty being changed in society. Many people who receive cosmetic surgery claimed that the surgery has improved their overall mental and physical well being. We must understand that, the most crucial and motivating factor of people wanting cosmetic surgery is through body image. There is two components of constructs in body image, body image through orientation, refers to how important the body is to the person. The second leading factor for cosmetic surgery is body image evaluation,
red the real meaning of plastic surgery? Do you know when plastic surgery was first developed? Despite the consensus that plastic surgery involves surgery done using plastic or artificial materials, plastic surgery is actually derived from the Greek word “plastikos”, which means “to mold or shape” whereas “surgery” is obtained from “kheirourgos”, “kheir” being “hand” and “ourgos” being “work”. It dates back to as early as 600 BC, when a nose was reconstructioned by a Hindu surgeon using a piece of cheek because it was damaged in battles or caused by punishments as slaves. However, the idea of beauty has been distorted in which one believes to obtain would require the help of an approach that is not necessarily needed. In today’s society, a person is being pressured into looking a certain way in order to be called beautiful. With the media and the Internet highly influencing consumers every day by presenting picture perfect celebrities with smooth skin, perky chests and bottoms on television, it is likely that the media would hold an effect on the persuadable youth who are healthy with no defects but yearns for the unattainable. Surgical makeover shows such as Extreme Makeover and The Swan showing back-to-back episodes of a group of “ugly” women given a gift to look and feel beautiful has shown how many people in society lacks the self-esteem and confidence. For them, it is to undergo plastic surgery. It is no surprise that in the annual report entitled “Global Aesthetic/Cosmetic Surgery Procedures Performed in 2011”, United States ranked first among countries performing breast augmentations.