BODY IMAGE ISSUES

Online therapy for body image issues

Body image issues can affect anyone regardless of gender, age, weight, or body shape. People often delay or avoid seeking help due to a variety of reasons including shame, stigma, and lack of awareness about the support available.

I didn’t realise I had body dysmorphia until my mid-twenties and then it took until my thirties before I was able to access the right support and it changed my life. Body image issues can have a huge impact on a person’s life whether they’re a teenager or adult, male or female. At its most severe, this can include self-harm and suicidal issues.

As an integrative therapist, I can work with you to improve your body image and associated issues that often go alongside it (such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders and exercise addiction). Treatment drawing upon a range of therapeutic interventions to help create meaningful psychological change and support you to live a life of meaning and purpose.

The main categories of body image disorders are:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Body dysmorphia is an anxiety disorder in which a person is preoccupied by their appearance, often with a distorted focus on specific features/bodyparts that are unnoticeable to others.

This has a significant impact on the individual’s quality of life and often occurs alongside other issues such as as anxiety, depression, OCD, suicidal ideation, self-harm, and eating disorders.

Muscle Dysmorphia (MD)

This is a subtype of BDD that mostly affects males. It’s also referred to as ‘bigorexia’ or ‘reverse anorexia’ and involves preoccupation with thoughts of being too small or not muscular enough. Individuals have a distorted view of the size of their body which leads to obsessive compulsive behaviours.

As with BDD, the impacts on a person’s quality of life can be huge. Muscle dysmorphia is associated with OCD, substance misuse, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and eating disorders.

Whatever body image struggles you’re having, however long you’ve had them, you don’t have to keep suffering.

Counselling and psychotherapy for body image issues can help.

I provide effective online therapy for body image issues including body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and muscle dysmorphia (MD).

The treatment I offer to help you improve your body image includes:

  1. Person-centred counselling

  2. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT)

  3. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

  4. Buddhist Psychology (including Mindfulness)

  5. Logotherapy and Existential Analysis

Having trained in a number of therapies and evidence-based interventions, I can tailor treatment to your needs.