Body Dismorphic Disorder: Why Does My Mirror Lie?
Poor self- confidence is a huge issue in our society today. It is normal to see girls who are dissatisfied with their appearance because of the image of beauty that is portrayed in the media. Looking in the mirror in itself is not an unhealthy habit or something that should be avoided, but if you are constantly obsessing over imagined or minor imperfections in your appearance to the point where it hinders your everyday functionality, then you have a problem. Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) is a serious illness and is not to be taken lightly. BDD is a disorder that is highly under diagnosed and it is important to increase the awareness of this debilitating disease in order to aid in the treatment and health of those who knowingly and unknowingly suffer from it.
Though the term “body dysmorphic disorder” is new, it is not a new principle. The idea of body dysmorphic disorder has been around for centuries. It has been traced back to Greek mythology and Japanese, Russian, and European literature (Biby, 1998). A psychopathologist, Enrique Morselli, first introduced Body Dysmorphic Disorder in 1886. Though he originally used the term Dysmorphophobia, the fear of having a deformity (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2008), Morselli discussed the “preoccupation with some imagined defect that to other people is neither disfiguring nor even apparent,” (Thomas, n.d.).
Morselli’s definition of BDD does not include anorexia, obesity or hypochondria because these conditions do not focus on imagined malformations but rather on actual or imagined diseases. In 1987, the American Psychological Association recognized BDD as a legitimate disorder and was published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) however, it was not renamed until the publishing of DSM IV. (The BDD Foundation, 2007). The DSM IV describes the diagnosis criteria as:
1. A preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance. If a slight physical...