Body Image

Your Body Image refers to how you experience who you are. It is your personal relationship with your body, that encompasses your perceptions, beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions that relate to your physical appearance. Your relationship with your body can be complex, which can lead to body image distress.

Having a poor body image can make you feel inadequate, as it can lower your self-esteem. You may not value yourself and have low self-worth, which can lead to feelings of helplessness, anxiety and depression.

Social situations may cause you stress, because you feel self-conscious or inadequate. You may be having difficulty accepting your looks, which makes you believe others won't like your looks either. This may cause you to be fearful of being judged and rejected by others.

A negative body image can also lead to patterns of disordered eating. Excessive dieting and exercising, because you fear you look fat, can lead to binge eating and purging. Poor body image is a factor which can predispose and maintain an eating disorder.

Body Image Treatment

  • We will explore the situations from your past that have made an impact on your body image, and how they still effect you today

  • I will help you identify which events and situations trigger you to have negative body image thoughts and emotions

  • I will teach you how to experience and name your emotions, so that you don't use food and eating to push them away

  • I will help you uncover assumptions and distortions in your thinking style, and show you how to create new positive thoughts about your body image

  • I will support you as you build greater confidence to deal with social situations

  • I will teach you how to 'hush' your inner critical voice, and show you how to experience your body without judgement

Call us today on 020 7622 7727, or email info@weightmatters.co.uk, to arrange a FREE 30 MINUTE SESSION to discuss how I can support you as you change your relationship with your body image.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder(BDD), sometimes referred to as body dysmorphia, is a disorder where the affected person is excessively concerned about, and preoccupied by, a perceived defect(s) in his or her physical features, or body image. Symptoms of BDD include:

  • Obsessive thoughts about perceived appearance defects

  • Obsessive and compulsive behaviors related to perceived appearance defects

  • Major depressive disorder symptoms

  • Delusional thoughts and beliefs related to perceived appearance defects

  • Social and family withdrawal, social phobia, loneliness and self-imposed social isolation

  • Anxiety; possible panic attacks

  • Chronic low self-esteem

  • Feeling self-conscious in social environments; thinking that others notice and mock their perceived defects

  • Strong feelings of shame

  • Problems initiating and maintaining relationships (both intimate relationships and friendships)

  • Repetitive behavior such as constantly applying make-up or regularly checking appearance in mirrors

  • Perfectionism (undergoing cosmetic surgery and behaviours such as excessive moisturising and exercising with an aim to create an unattainable but ideal body and reduce anxiety)