Written by leading psychologists, psychiatrists, and plastic surgeons, this volume provides a thorough understanding of the psychological issues involved in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. The book examines the relationships among physical appearance, body image, and psychosocial functioning, reviews the literature on the psychological functioning of plastic surgical patients, and offers clinically effective recommendations on psychological assessment and care of specific patient groups. Major sections detail the psychological issues surrounding specific disfigurements and reconstructive procedures and cosmetic surgery of the face and body. These chapters include brief questionnaires for psychological assessment of patients. Concluding chapters discuss bioethical, professional, and legal issues.

Why do physicians who've taken the Hippocratic Oath willingly cut into seemingly healthy patients? How do you measure the success of surgery aimed at making someone happier by altering his or her body? Sander L. Gilman explores such questions in Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul, a cultural history of the connections between beauty of body and happiness of mind. Following these themes through an impressive range of historical moments and players, Gilman traces how aesthetic alterations of the body have been used to "cure" dissatisfied states of mind. In his exploration of the striking parallels between the development of cosmetic surgery and the field of psychiatry, Gilman entertains an array of philosophical and psychological questions that underlie the more practical decisions rountinely made by doctors and potential patients considering these types of surgery. While surveying and incorporating the relevant theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Menninger, Paul Schilder, contemporary feminist critics, and others, Gilman considers the highly unstable nature of cultural notions of health, happiness, and beauty. He reveals how ideas of race and gender structured early understandings of aesthetic surgery in discussions of both the "abnormality" of the Jewish nose and the historical requirement that healthy and virtuous females look "normal," thereby enabling them to achieve invisibility. Reflecting upon historically widespread prejudices, Gilman describes the persecutions, harrassment, attacks, and even murders that continue to result from bodily difference and he encourages readers to question the cultural assumptions that underlie the increasing acceptability of this surgical form of psychotherapy. Synthesizing a vast body of related literature and containing a comprehensive bibliography, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul will appeal to a broad audience, including those interested in the histories of medicine and psychiatry, and in philosophy, cultural studies, Jewish cultural studies, and race and ethnicity.

ESSENTIAL PSYCHIATRY FOR THE AESTHETIC PRACTITIONER Aesthetic practice requires an understanding of human psychology, yet professionals across cosmetic medicine and related fields receive no formal training in identifying and managing psychological conditions. Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner provides concise yet comprehensive guidance on approaching patient assessment, identifying common psychiatric diseases, and managing challenging situations in cosmetic practice. This much-needed guide brings together contributions by dermatologists, plastic surgeons, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other experts to help practitioners understand the role of psychology in cosmetic practice and improve interpersonal relations with their patients. Assuming no previous background knowledge in psychiatry, the text provides cosmetic practitioners of all training and experience levels with clear guidance, real-world advice, and effective psychological tools to assist their practice. Through common clinical scenarios, readers learn to determine if a patient is a good candidate for a cosmetic procedure, enhance the patient experience, deal with difficult personalities in the cosmetic clinic, recognize obsessive compulsive and body dysmorphic disorders, and more. Describes how to use psychologically informed approaches and treatments for aesthetic patients Features easy-to-use psychological tools such as motivational interviewing, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, and acceptance and commitment therapy Includes extensive references and practical tips for understanding the psychological implications of cosmetic treatments Covers cosmetic consultations for female, male, and transgender patients Discusses the history and psychology of beauty as well as the role of cosmetics and cosmeceuticals Emphasizes the importance of screening for common psychological comorbidities Addresses the impact of social media on self-image and its role in a growing crisis in beauty and appearance Highlights the need to develop new guidelines to treat rapidly evolving patient populations Explores how gender fluidity and variations in ethnicity are changing the approaches to aesthetic patients Essential Psychiatry for the Aesthetic Practitioner is required reading for dermatologists, plastic surgeons, cosmetic doctors, dentists, nurses, and physician assistants and all other professionals working in aesthetic medicine.

This landmark book is the first comprehensive edited volume on body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a common and severe disorder. People with BDD are preoccupied with distressing or impairing preoccupations with non-existent or slight defects in their physical appearance. People with BDD think that they look ugly -- even monstrous -- although they look normal to others. BDD often derails sufferers' lives and can lead to suicide. BDD has been described around the world since the 1800s but was virtually unknown and unstudied until only several decades ago. Since then, research on BDD has dramatically increased understanding of this often-debilitating condition. Only recently, BDD was considered untreatable, but today, most sufferers can be successfully treated. This is the only book that provides comprehensive, in-depth, up-to-date information on BDD's clinical features, history, classification, epidemiology, morbidity, features in special populations, diagnosis and assessment, etiology and pathophysiology, treatment, and relationship to other disorders. Numerous chapters focus on cosmetic treatment, because it is frequently received but usually ineffective for BDD, which can lead to legal action and even violence toward treating clinicians. The book includes numerous clinical cases, which illustrate BDD's clinical features, its often-profound consequences, and recommended treatment approaches. This volume's contributors are the leading researchers and clinicians in this rapidly expanding field. Editor Katharine A. Phillips, head of the DSM-V committee on BDD, has done pioneering research on many aspects of this disorder, including its treatment. This book will be of interest to all clinicians who provide mental health treatment and to researchers in BDD, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, and other obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. It will be indispensable to surgeons, dermatologists, and other clinicians who provide cosmetic treatment. Students and trainees with an interest in psychology and mental health will also be interested in this book. This book fills a major gap in the literature by providing clinicians and researchers with cutting-edge, indispensable information on all aspects of BDD and its treatment.

How does an individual form a body image? Where do the internal representations of one's body image intersect with the external bodily reality? How does a person adjust the image to reflect the changes wrought by aging, disease, deformity, or injury? What is the role of body images in the development of eating disorders and other psychological disorders? What psychotherapeutic and medical procedures facilitate positive body-image changes? In the last two decades, questions such as these have spurred significant progress in the construction of a psychology of physical appearance, transcending disciplinary boundaries to incorporate elements from both the behavioral and biomedical sciences. Because the body-image construct is multidimensional and entails a rich diversity--body image is, more accurately, body-images--the most productive thinking on the topic requires an integration of both objective and subjective foci. Bringing the literature up to date, BODY IMAGES: DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE reviews and elucidates various concepts of body image, body-image development, psychosocially dysfunctional deviations from normal appearance, and methods of facilitating body image change. The book's sixteen chapters are divided into six parts; each chapter has been written by a carefully chosen expert on the topic. The first part provides a historic overview of psychological concepts about the body, and introduces the procedures and problems of assessing body image. Part 2 covers the development of body images, exploring the contrast between "inside" and "outside" images, the sociocultural determinants of body image, and the role of body image in the psychosocial development across the life span. Part 3 explores the divergence and dysfunction of body images: Chapters 6 and 7 offer sensitive observations on the psychosocial impact of deviations from normal appearance such as congenital deformities, disfiguring injuries, and physical disabilities. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on individual of objectively "normal" appearance who suffer body-experience psychopathologies, for example, hypochondria, somatic delusions, eating disorders, and gender identity disorders. Parts 4 and 5 concern the professional interventions that can alter negative or dysfunctional body images. Chapters 13 through 15 discuss the nature of the psychosocial change brought about through physical or psychological interventions, the integration of the changes into the sense of self, and the maintenance of the changes. The book concludes with a chapter by the editors, concisely summarizing the principal themes interwoven through the book. BODY IMAGES: DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE had its genesis in the authors' first meeting. Though both are scientists and clinical practitioners, Cash works primarily as a researcher in an academic department of psychology and Pruzinsky works largely as a clinician in a medical school department of plastic surgery. They each felt a need to understand and incorporate the perspectives and experiences of each others work. This volume will be of enormous value to others with the same need: those studying and researching still unresolved and unexplored issues of body image, those who need an understanding of the issues of body image for their psychotherapeutic or medical practices. This book will be invaluable to all those whose work involves issues of human appearance.