What we treat
Body dysmorphia
A mental health condition characterised by obsessive focus on perceived flaws or defects in one's appearance, often minor or non-existent.
Eating disorders cover a range of conditions with unusual eating habits, whether it's overeating or undereating, and they affect both your body and mind. Often, BDD can resemble other mental health disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression.
Detecting the signs and behaviours of eating disorders is highly important for early intervention and successful treatment. If some of the symptoms are familiar to you, we advise to seek professional help.
Some common signs and symptoms include:
Food or eating preoccupations: Examples include constant and repetitive dieting, monitoring or calculating food intake like calories or fasting, restricting your diet like cutting out food groups or limiting certain types of food. Other food-related rituals include eating alone or in secret, using specific cutlery or eating only at particular times, and spending a huge amount of time on meal planning or food shopping.
Excessive preoccupation with appearance: if you are excessively preoccupied with your appearance and spend a huge amount of time each day thinking about your insecurities. As a result, it can interfere with day-to-day activities, work, school, and relationships.
Repetitive behaviours: In an attempt to achieve perfection, you may engage in repetitive behaviours on a regular basis. Your goal may be to examine, hide, and fix the perceived flaw. Excessive mirror checking, grooming, skin picking, and asking others to try and find reassurance about how you look.
Avoidance of social situations: The fear of being judged or ridiculed for your flaw can lead to social withdrawal. You may avoid social interactions, public places, or situations where you might be photographed.
Impaired functioning: Unnecessary obsession impairs your functioning in a number of ways such as difficulty maintaining employment, performing at school, romantic dating, and more.
Seeking cosmetic procedures: To permanently fix the flaw, you may spend a lot of money on cosmetic surgeries or procedures. However, these treatments rarely minimize the distress, and you may become plagued by a new issue afterwards.
Mental health issues: Since BDD is associated with low self-confidence, anxiety, and depression, the burden can be too much for you to handle, and result in additional mental health complications.
Engaging in these harmful habits can provoke anxiety and interfere with how you function daily. If you’ve been diagnosed with an eating disorder before and feel like you're slipping back into old patterns, seeing a psychologist helps prevent the condition from taking hold.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is when you become overly fixated on perceived flaws in your appearance, even if those imperfections are minor or only in your imagination. Unlike the usual self-doubt we all feel from time to time about our body shape or weight, BDD is much more intense. It leads to overwhelming thoughts that can seriously affect the way you deal with daily routine. You may spend a lot of time trying to fix these so-called flaws or avoid social situations because of your feelings and concerns.
BDD is when you get fixated on a physical flaw that could be pretty much minor, non-existent, or even invisible to others. It could be about anything— your skin appearance, facial features, or other body parts such as arms, breasts, stomach or buttocks. This kind of obsession can make you feel stressed to the point of withdrawing from social situations. In severe cases, suicidal thoughts or behaviours can result.
Men and women can all experience body dysmorphia, but concerns may be gender specific. Often, men will worry about having a receding hairline and not being muscular enough. On the other hand, ladies become more concerned with their blemished skin and weight. This insecurity and self-consciousness often begin during teenage years when you are particularly sensitive to changes in your appearance and societal pressures related to body image.
If you are suffering from body dysmorphia, you may seek cosmetic procedures to address perceived flaws, even when others cannot identify these flaws. Unfortunately, such interventions often leave you feeling worse or prompt the fixation to shift to another body area. In instances like this, psychological support becomes more important.
A combination of genetic, environmental, and psychological factors is often involved in the development of BDD.
Triggers of BDD include:
Stressful life events. Major life changes that are stressful, like grief from losing a loved one, divorce, and relationship breakups, can be a trigger. The mental and emotional turmoil can convince you to seek control through your eating habits.
Pressure to conform - being part of situations where a lot of emphasis is put on appearance, say for example, forming a new circle of friends, entering a job where looks are heavily scrutinized, can be a trigger. When there is pressure to fit into certain beauty requirements, it can make existing insecurities worse, giving rise to BDD.
Media and social media - society puts much weight on physical appearance, as influenced by the media and social media. Seeing images of people with ‘perfect’ skin and bodies sets unrealistic beauty standards. This may make you unhappy with your own appearance, especially during adolescence when you're particularly sensitive to external opinions and comparisons.
Additionally, receiving negative comments and mockery, especially during teenage years, can have a serious, long-term impact on self-esteem. These experiences wrongly support the belief that your worth is primarily tied to your appearance.
Trauma. If you've experienced physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, this can be a trigger for eating disorders. The disorder may develop as a way to cope with the trauma or to feel "in control" over your body.
Major life transitions. Entering college, transitioning into puberty, new school or job are all transitions which can bring uncertainty and stress, which can manifest in harmful eating habits as a coping mechanism.
Common causes of BDD can include:
Genetic factors - having a family member with BDD or other mental health issues can raise the likelihood of developing BDD. Genetic predisposition is responsible for how the brain processes visual information and self-perception, which can make you more focused on perceived flaws.
Biological Factors - hormonal imbalances or irregularities in brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, can influence eating behaviours
Psychological Factors - including perfectionism tendency and low self-esteem - if you have perfectionist tendencies, you might be more likely to develop BDD. Since perfectionists often fixate on small imperfections and believe your worth hinges on achieving an ideal look, you can be more susceptible to the disorder.
Similarly, if you have low self-esteem, you may be at a higher risk. If you struggle with negative beliefs about your appearance, this can fuel a cycle of self-criticism and body dissatisfaction. Both perfectionism and low self-esteem can make it harder to break free from these negative patterns and develop a healthy self-image.
Co-occurring mental health disorders. Eating disorders often co-exist with other mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
If your concerns about your appearance make you struggle to function, we recommend you seek mental health support. Professional guidance would help you manage and even overcome BDD.
Treatment with a Someone.health psychologist may involve:
Reducing negative thoughts about your appearance
Addressing compulsive behaviours and rituals aimed at alleviating anxiety
Cultivating a holistic view of yourself, free from judgement and beyond physical appearance
Exploring events or experiences contributing to concerns about specific body parts
Collaboratively considering the appropriateness of medication in your treatment plan
It's easy to start today - you can sign up in less than ten minutes to bulk billed therapy today.
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Find an appointmentIt will not always be obvious and it could be gradual. But when you start feeling better, then that means that the therapy is working.
You'll also be able to see things more clearly as you progress with your talk therapy. Healing, however, is not always so clear-cut. There will always be ups and downs. If that happens, you can talk to your psychologist about your progress and be open with what you're feeling.
Australia has regulatory bodies to ensure we maintain consistent and high standards across the psychology profession.
Yes. They are registered with the Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA), listed with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), and individually selected and monitored by Someone.health's expert clinical team.
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Only your GP or a psychiatrist can prescribe medication.
Medication can only be prescribed by medical doctors, which includes general practitioners (GPs) and psychiatrists.
If you need the services of a psychiatrist, please visit Call To Mind, a telehealth service specialising in psychiatry.
