Katherine Phillips - Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder (2009)

Katherine A. Phillips - Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder: An Essential Guide (Oxford University Press, 2009).

ISBN 9780195379402 | 320 pages | PDF

In Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Dr. Katherine A. Phillips, the world's leading authority on BDD reaches out to patients, their friends, and their families with this concise and updated handbook.

BDD causes sufferers to be obsessed by perceived flaws in their appearance and may afflict as much as two percent of the population, or nearly five million people. Many sufferers are able to function well in society, but remain secretly obsessed by their "hideous acne" or "horrible nose," sneaking constant peeks at a pocket mirror, or spending hours at a time redoing makeup. Others find their lives disintegrate because of their appearance obsessions. It is not an uncommon disorder, simply a hidden one, since sufferers are often embarrassed to tell even their closest friends about their concerns.

Using stories and interviews to show the many different behaviors and symptoms of BDD, and a quick self-assessment questionnaire, Dr. Phillips guides readers through the basics of the disorder and through the many treatment options that work and don't work. With Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder: An Essential Guide, sufferers will find both helpful advice and much needed reassurance in a compact, down-to-earth indispensable book.

Katharine A. Phillips, MD, is Director of The BDD and Body Image Program at Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, and Professor of Psychiatry at Brown Medical School.

Reviews

"Dr. Phillips has once again accomplished something monumental. This empathetic and hopeful book provides a comprehensive understanding of body dysmorphic disorder; it also offers proven solutions for working through it effectively. I have no doubt that this eagerly anticipated and necessary contribution will be regarded as a most authoritative layman's manual for body dysmorphic disorder. " -- Britney Brimhall, Director, BDDCentral