Body Dysmorphic Disorder Patients Research Articles

Cognitive-behavioral treatment of body dysmorphic disorder: A case report

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) refers to preoccupation with an imagined physical defect or the exaggeration of a slight physical anomaly. Since BDD's inclusion in the DSM-III-R, there have been only a handful of reports of its cognitive-behavioral treatment. We describe one successful short-term cognitive-behavioral therapy treatment of a BDD patient whose presenting concern was small hand size. After nine sessions of therapy, the patient evidenced substantial change on indices measuring affective, cognitive, and behavioral facets of BDD. There was also clinically meaningful improvement in overall levels of depression and anxiety. It is suggested that cognitive-behavioral treatment programs for BDD should take into account comorbid conditions such as social phobia, and avoidant personality disorder.

Exposure, response prevention, and cognitive therapy in the treatment of body dysmorphic disorder

Behavioral treatment of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is vastly neglected in the behavioral literature. The primary target symptom associated with BDD is a preoccupation with a perceived physical defect that is not noticeable to others but that the individual attempts to correct by the use of cosmetic/dermatological products, plastic surgery, or mirror checking. Five BDD patients who received exposure, response prevention, and cognitive therapy were described. These 5 patients all refused pharmacotherapy and underwent either intensive (n=3) or weekly (n=2) behavior therapy. Patients in intensive therapy received 90-minute sessions 5 days per week whereas patients in weekly treatment received one 90-minute session per week. Four out of 5 patients improved on the Overvalued Ideation Scale (OVI) and on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) modified for BDD. Based on these case histories, behavior and cognitive therapy may be a suitable treatment approach for BDD.

Some new and unique apparatus for biochemical study

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is characterised by extreme pre-occupation with perceived deficits in physical appearance, and sufferers experience severe impairment in functioning. Previous research has demonstrated the overlap in clinical features between BDD and obsessive–compulsive disorder, yet research into the obsessional belief domains associated with BDD is limited. Research has also suggested that BDD patients are high in social anxiety and may endorse particular delusional beliefs. The current study examined cognitive vulnerability factors for body dysmorphic symptoms in a sample of 246 undergraduate students. Individuals higher in body dysmorphic symptoms reported higher social anxiety, delusional beliefs, and obsessive beliefs, including beliefs around the importance of thoughts and the importance of controlling thoughts, intolerance of uncertainty and perfectionism, and inflated responsibility and overestimation of threat. Among these relationships, only social anxiety, delusional beliefs, and importance of thoughts and controlling thoughts were uniquely associated with body dysmorphic symptoms in a multivariate model.