I'm going to start all of my blog posts on psychological illnesses with a disclaimer: I am not a qualified psychologist or counselor.
We all have psychological quirks; an aspect of our psyche becomes a disorder when it has a significant negative influence on our day-to-day living.
i.e. clinical depression has severe, long-term effects on a person's quality of life; feeling depressed is a temporary, natural, and often appropriate response to certain life events.
The varying degrees of body dysmorphia that we all experience can be attributed to many influences in our environment:
Family
Society
Peer-group
Social Media
Other psychological disorders
Body dysmorphia is basically when we become obsessed with an aspect of our body that we PERCEIVE as a flaw or defect. (DSM classifications here)
This can include muscle dysmorhpia in which a person PERCEIVES themselves as having muscles that are too small.
I emphasise PERCEIVE, because this disorder creates a situation in which one overlooks evidence or facts about one's body.
A person with body dysmorphia can have various degrees of awareness of this disorder; ranging from being completely unaware that they do not perceive their body inaccurately, to being aware that what they think and feel about their body is inaccurate. Being more aware is the better option, however with the current popularity of self-diagnosing psychological disorders in Western culture it can be easy to misdiagnose ourselves with a disorder like this.
That being said it's better know that we all experience these kinds of thoughts and feelings to a certain degree at some stage in our lives. Furthermore, if your perception of your body is accurate then your dissatisfaction may be valid so long as it isn't the result of a different disorder.
So what do we do with all this information?
It's healthy to understand that whether we have this disorder or not, having a negative opinion about an aspect of our body is only helpful to a certain degree.
If you do have a psychological disorder of any kind, it is vital that you seek therapy with a professional in order to overcome it. While it is not impossible to overcome psychological disorders on your own, working with a trained professional is safer and more effective.
Either way, one thing you can do is make a list of aspects of your body that you DO like.
We can usually tell if an assessment of our bodies is accurate if it includes BOTH negative AND positive observations. This is usually balanced, meaning we have roughly the same amount of negative and positive observations.
Hope you found this helpful!
May you be healthy,
COACH DOM
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