Eda Gorbis on Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Eda Gorbis on Body Dysmorphic Disorder

by David Bullard
A renowned expert on obsessive compulsive and body dysmorphic disorders discusses the nature of the little-understood diagnosis of BDD, successful treatment methods, and resources for therapists whose clients suffer from these often debilitating symptoms. 

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Characteristics of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

David Bullard: To begin, could you give us a little background on BDD for our readers who may not be familiar with it?
Eda Gorbis: I began learning about treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) when I was helping to create day treatment protocols at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute in 1992, and then I furthered my knowledge by studying with Dr. Edna Foa in 1994. In 1996, I began work with a patient who had both OCD and BDD and was addicted to plastic surgery procedures. After successful treatment that was specifically designed to ameliorate the stress associated with her BDD, we were able to work with her on her remaining OCD, and my interest grew in this patient population.

Body dysmorphic disorder is self-perceived ugliness. It is when a person feels ugly inside about a minute anomaly—usually invisible to the naked eye of another—or has a markedly excessive preoccupation with even a slight defect, together with the feeling of being unable to make it right.

DB: So it's a feeling and self-perception. I've noticed that, for some people with BDD, there is a vivid visual picture in their minds. One study highlighted the intrusive visual imagery these people have in addition to negative self-cognitions and feelings.
EG: When they look into the mirror, they see themselves as ugly.
They do not perceive themselves in the mirror as we perceive ourselves. They see a distortion that is invisible to others.
They do not perceive themselves in the mirror as we perceive ourselves. There is something wrong in their visual fields, from the eyes into the brain, that gives them inaccurate feedback. They see a distortion that is invisible to others.

What people with BDD perceive is actually similar to the reflection we have all seen in carnival funhouse mirrors. This differs from the common feelings of insecurity or self-consciousness about one's appearance that most people experience from time to time. Many people who have had cosmetic surgery are happy with the results and can move on with their lives without continuing to obsess about the original defect. With BDD, however, any surgical "correction" will itself be seen as imperfect, or an obsessive fixation with another body part will take over.

There are some theories, but the specific causes of BDD are not known. Many experts agree that sociological and biological factors play a role in the development of BDD.
DB: And it can be extremely debilitating.
EG: Yes, one of the most disabling conditions I know of. People experience extreme self-consciousness, and often avoid social situations, feeling others are judging and criticizing their self-perceived imperfections. The more the fixations intensify, the more it seems rational that others are also focusing on the "defect." It can be a kind of paranoid ideation.

Then a person's relationships suffer, along with many aspects of daily life. They can repeatedly request reassurances from others, but with no relief from their certainty about the ugliness. These compulsive requests for reassurance actually reinforce the false belief system and fixations; this leads to further compulsive questioning in a continuing cycle. They get so focused on their appearance that much time is spent hiding or trying to perfect the "flaw" cosmetically. These people are often unable to leave the house to make appointments, or to hold a job.
DB: Can you tell us about co-morbidity?
EG: BDD has a high co-morbidity with other anxiety disorders. The research is not perfect, but it seems that more men are treated for BDD than women. Perhaps female BDD symptoms are more likely to be interpreted as "normal" female behavior in our culture and are likely to be overlooked and remain untreated. The onset of BDD is not exclusive to a particular age, though symptoms often emerge during the teen-age years.

Treatment Considerations

DB: Could you give our readers an idea of how you work with someone with this particular disorder?
EG: More often than not, BDD is intertwined and co-morbid with OCD. Both disorders must be targeted at the same time—the perfectionistic concerns or fear of being criticized on a performance level that are characteristic of OCD, and also elements of social phobia that are associated with BDD.

BDD has certain expected features: for example, an exaggerated physical anomaly would be chin, eyelids, cheekbones—oftentimes in males, it would be penile size—with symmetry and exactness issues. I have found that women compare and contrast their breasts or their arms—any body part can be compared with the corresponding part on the other side of the body. The self-perceived anomaly also has a tendency to move from one body part into another: it can shift from the nose into the ear, for example.
DB: You mentioned that the first patient you worked with had had multiple surgeries. That's a good example of how it shifts from one body part to another, and they get the surgery based on that.
EG: Right. That patient had more than a hundred cosmetic surgery interventions.
There is an element of addictive behavior and impulsivity associated with BDD, which can be a great warning sign for the clinician.
There is an element of addictive behavior and impulsivity associated with BDD, which can be a great warning sign for the clinician, because you do not find this so much in strictly obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some of the patients with BDD have also met diagnostic criteria for sexual addiction and gambling. It is the exact opposite for people with OCD. Patients with OCD are not impulsive. They would be like Rodin's "Thinker."

With patients with body dysmorphic disorder, you have an overlap between impulsivity and compulsivity. Whereas people with OCD are extremely moral and truthful, people with this overlap of impulsivity and compulsivity would show no guilt or remorse. This overlap makes treatment extremely challenging. Some patients with BDD have also met diagnostic criteria for sexual addiction and gambling, which was a little bit surprising to me. Well, not really surprising, but interesting how impulsivity and the pleasure is associated with the alleviation of tension or excitation. For example, in gambling, it's not the reduction of anxiety that is the aim of the behavior. The aim is the attainment of tension release, like hair pulling or when they squeeze pimples, and excitation—the adrenaline rush in gambling or sexual addition. So you have very different aims of the behaviors that are intertwined in very complex ways.
DB: Some of the people who have written in the field make a distinction between delusional versus nondelusional BDD—for instance, someone who looks in the mirror and sees that his ears are too big, and he really thinks that they are too big, versus someone who looks in the mirror and knows he feels bad about it but accepts reassurance. He knows that his ears are really okay, and he recognizes that he has a problem in his perception. Do you see that distinction? Is it helpful to you in your work?
EG: Let's call it poor insight. That is a better term than "delusional." And it is classified along with other OC-spectrum disorders, such as Tourette's syndrome, eating disorders, trichotillimania, and compulsive skin picking. BDD is also often seen as part of the impulse control disorders—where impulsivity can be thought of as seeking a small, short-term gain at the expense of a large, long-term loss. People with BDD get completely dysfunctional, as I described earlier-becoming addicted to surgical procedures, getting stuck in front of mirrors, needing to ask constantly for reassurance, etc.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy

DB: Although each case is individualized, can you give us an overview of how a cognitive-behavioral approach can be utilized in treating OCD?
EG: With cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) a person learns to change the way he or she thinks and acts. We know different people can have different attitudes about the same specific conditions: A large facial birthmark can certainly be noticeable to others, but may have no negative impact on someone who has accepted it, while being debilitating to someone with BDD. And, of course, even a nonexistent or minor flaw can be devastating to a person with BDD. It is important to help people change their thinking habits. Exposure and response prevention are taught to people with BDD to help them face their anxiety and any co-morbid BDD concerns. This means repeatedly learning to tolerate discomfort. Anxiety gradually subsides as they continue to confront situations without the avoidance response.

We also use the 4-step model of our colleague Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD, as
outlined in his books Brain Lock and You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-step solution for changing bad habits, ending unhealthy thinking, and taking control of your life.

The steps we teach our patients to help them get freed from obsessional thinking are:
Step 1: Relabel (recognize that the intrusive obsessive thoughts and urges are the result of OCD).
Step 2: Reattribute (Realize that the intensity and intrusiveness of the thought or urge is caused by OCD).
Step 3: Refocus (Work around the OCD thoughts by focusing your attention on something else, at least for a few minutes: do another behavior).
Step 4: Revalue (Do not take the OCD thought at face value. It is not significant in itself).

The Role of Psychoeducation

DB: Yes, I've found that simple process very useful for some OCD clients, and it goes along with my favorite bumper sticker: "Don't Believe Everything You Think!"
How helpful do you find psychoeducational materials?
EG: I think psychoeducational materials are always very helpful and important, because then patients know they are not alone. In fact, we now believe 5 million Americans are afflicted with this very debilitating illness. It removes a lot of people from the workforce.
We now believe 5 million Americans are afflicted with this very debilitating illness. It removes a lot of people from the workforce.
DB: Isn't it a characteristic of BDD that it feels so shameful that the majority have hidden it from the people who are closest to them?
EG: Well, the dysfunction is most often extreme, and usually afflicts young people by the time they are 18 and ready to get out of the house and into college. Then, because of the self-perceived ugliness, they are unable to get into social situations or attend lectures. They can't date. They camouflage themselves with glasses and excessive makeup. It is similar to an anorexic who is quite underweight and having cardiac problems and broken bones, and losing consciousness and so forth, but still worries that she's too fat. These people, in a very similar way, feel ugly, and there is a delusional component to this feeling ugly, as in anorexia. A distinction from anorexia, however, is that an individual with BDD would be preoccupied with the appearance of his or her face, while the anorexic will be more preoccupied with self-control strategies regarding weight and shape.
DB: Can you recommend some books for therapists who want to learn more about this disorder?
EG: The classic in the field of BDD is Dr. Katharine Phillips' The Broken Mirror: Understanding and Treating Body Dysmorphic Disorder (2005). She also has a newer one: Understanding Body Dysmorphic Disorder (2009). I have already mentioned the books of Dr. Schwartz. Other good ones are Feeling Good About the Way You Look (2006), The BDD Workbook (2002), and The Adonis Complex (2000).

We also have information on our website: hope4ocd.com. There are some other good ones such as Dr. Phillips' at www.butler.org; and the Massachusetts General Hospital BDD clinic; and www.bddcentral.com.

Mirror Externalization

DB: On the treatment end of it, would you say something about the mirror approach to your work?
EG: Because the physical anomaly is so exaggerated in the minds of these patients, I was thinking one day, "How do we externalize this self-perceived ugliness?" And I thought of the carnival funhouse mirrors, because they really exaggerate everything. It's a form of exposure. So we have a laboratory at the Westwood Institute in which a certain part is exaggerated when they're looking into a mirror. The room also has lighting controls, because different lighting and angles change our perception of the reflection. At this time the patients are just writing their anxiety levels.

We then cover all the mirrors for three days in a row, and all violations are recorded to track the compulsion. Compare-and-contrast behaviors—with those around them or with photos in magazines—are also counted as compulsive because they're done out of the anxiety. Or asking for reassurance: "Do I look good?"

The process of "externalization" works by causing the breakdown of maladaptive associations and repetitive manipulation of their external, material icons. In exposure therapy, BDD patients are provided with a symptoms list and must then induce the debilitating condition and self-monitor/rate objective signs, such as pulse rate, extent of nausea, dizziness, and cognitive distortions—for example, "My nose and forehead are too big." Cognitive restructuring through writing exercises and observational records are emphasized.

Our patients stay in the program from six to eight hours a day, and there are three clinicians working with them in shifts on a daily basis. After they work with the clinicians, I expose them in a controlled way to a regular mirror where they have to write a self-description, like someone in the police department is looking for them—a profile with no emotion associated with it.

We use cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) with exposure and response prevention, and add mindful awareness training, cognitive restructuring, and Socratic questioning. We also use videotaping. Very often, I will use makeup artists to do an exaggerated prosthetic part. We have an interdisciplinary team. Treatment is tailored to each case. We also have six psychiatrists associated with us, who are OCD and anxiety disorder specialists.
DB: You have mentioned in the past that the model most clinicians have in private practice of the 50-minute session once or twice a week is inadequate for extreme cases of powerful dysfunctions such as BDD. It is wonderful that you are able to do such intensive work with those who are suffering with the most severe cases.
EG: We are able to do this work because we specialize only in OCD and BDD and other anxiety disorders. We don't treat anything else. And because of this narrow specialization, it is possible for one patient to work with three or four clinicians in a day. However, insurance companies just rejected one BDD case because they still don't accept the necessity for this intense treatment—they think it can be treated once a week, although this particular patient had been treated unsuccessfully once a week for years. It is a very debilitating illness—far more severe, I think, than OCD.

Medication

DB: That brings us to the issue of medications. SSRIs have been often prescribed to people with BDD. Would you say the majority of these people you work with are already on SSRIs, or do they end up on SSRIs?
EG: Based on my work with the six psychiatrists at the Institute, SSRIs alone do not seem to be helpful. There is no scientific evidence at this point for what really works with body dysmorphic disorder because of the delusional component and extremely poor insight. For people with high baseline anxiety, medication may be targeted to reduce anxiety. Depression and panic attacks can also be addressed with some medications, and atypical psychotic medications have also been used. But I have to emphasize that some kind of effective therapy is required, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy tailored to the individual case.

Families can also be a crucial part of the treatment.
It is important that family members see that this is a true debilitating disorder, rather than merely shallowness and self-absorption.
It is important that family members see that this is a true debilitating disorder, rather than merely shallowness and self-absorption. The love, support, and understanding of the family are very important, and they also have to be educated in how not to reinforce the obsessing and compulsions. Then, it is also important where they go after the treatment program.

Post-Treatment Care

DB: What are your experiences with post-treatment care?
EG: There are few referral possibilities for BDD patients to follow through. I think that these people are extremely high risk for relapse—maybe even more so than obsessive-compulsives, who have much greater compliance levels. Because of the impulsivity characteristic of BDD, you have less compliance, so even if patients do extremely well during the program, it is necessary to continue the self-therapy and self-treatment, because this illness is not really cured. I oftentimes give my patients examples: you can go through the best weight-loss program in the world, but if you then resort to your old eating habits, everything is going to come back right away. So really, I think it depends on finding out their interests or what they're best at while they're in the program, so that these dysfunctional compulsions can be immediately replaced with other activities. I tell them, "I don't care if you study Chinese, take a cooking class, or paint your house, as long as you get up in the morning and get going." Otherwise, all of the compulsions have a tendency to come back if the patients don't do anything that is productive.

Specialty Training in BDD

DB: I can see how important it is that they really understand what you're telling them about exposure and response prevention, and not reinforcing those dysfunctional behaviors. For any of the clinicians reading this who want to get the specific training needed to work in this arena, are you doing any training at the Westwood Institute or at UCLA?
EG: I would think that it's very important for them to go through training, but it would have to be hands on. It takes me approximately six months to train a good clinician for complicated cases, but I do specialize in extreme cases—patients who have failed a few other programs. Perhaps even a month of training would be sufficient if the clinicians saw a couple of cases that they would have to really work with intensively, because of the tailoring to the individual needs. It is not a cookie-cutter training; I couldn't tell you, "Here is a cookbook for any BDD case." Each case is like a snowflake. I've never seen two that were exactly alike, so we duly tailor the treatment to the individual needs of the patient.
DB: Absolutely. Finally, could you say something about the satisfaction you've gotten as a clinician in being able to help people who have experienced such terrible suffering and misery?
EG: My satisfactions are now taken with a grain of salt. Ten years ago, I was far more optimistic about the outcomes. I know now how debilitating and co-morbid this is with other illnesses, and how "feeling good" is dangerous for them. People with BDD have to be alert and vigilant to not fall into their old habits of dealing with their anxieties.

It's a medical illness that is extremely serious—like tremors of the mind. You could compare it a stroke or cancer that must be attended to. It is chronic; it waxes and wanes. People can definitely get to completely functional levels provided they attend to it on a daily basis. But, like a person with extremely high blood pressure or diabetes or even cancer, that person must be mindful and aware that there's a problem. Lately I've seen a few cases that had been in remission for 10 or 12 years and then they relapsed. I cannot tell you why. I don't even know if I have a hypothesis about the relapse after years in remission. And it sometimes takes longer to get them out of the condition the second time.
DB: That's a very sobering indication of the great suffering and difficulty of having this disorder. I really appreciate your helping these people even without necessarily always having easy answers. On the other hand, I know of some people over the past several years that have made tremendous improvement in their functioning, even if they've had to come back and see you periodically. It's made a big difference in the quality of their lives.
EG: I appreciate that, but the truth is I want to warn people against being extremely optimistic. There is no cure, and even if we ourselves have some of the highest levels of successful outcomes, let's not forget that I'm extremely careful, having been trained by Dr. Foa to assess cases for hours and hours and to administer up to 15 tests to make our understanding of the individual even more precise. We also need to reject and refer elsewhere about 50% of the cases that come to us that I think we cannot help. People who come here are self-selected. We never have more than three cases at a time in the entire Institute, and we are able to pay a lot of personal attention to each individual and tailor the treatment. If something is not working from yesterday to today, we change it. We have that luxury. If I need to, I can dedicate the entire Saturday to this patient. That said, I don't think other therapists have that luxury, and I think it's very important to put this element into the level of success. It was never the quantity but the quality of the work that we have been focused on.
DB: I think that's one clear understanding that your patients have about your work—the intense dedication. Without being able to promise success, you are certainly one of the most dedicated people I know working in this challenging field
EG: You are most welcome.


© David Bullard, PhD
Bios
Eda Gorbis Eda Gorbis, PhD, LMFT, is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine, and the Director/Founder of the Westwood Institute for Anxiety Disorders, Inc. She specializes in treatment of refractory cases of OCD and complex conditions, and her Institute attracts people from all over the world. She has integrated the most successful treatment modalities for OCD and complex comorbidities. She is the founder of the externalization method of using mirrors in treatment of BDD.

Dr. Gorbis was the vice president of the OC Foundation of California and lecturer for the West Los Angeles VA PTSD clinic, and has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the National OC Foundation. She is an author and co-author of numerous scientific articles on OCD, and has been featured in the media for her expertise on such programs as MTV's True Life, ABC News, 20/20, NBC's Today Show, and most recently, on the Discovery Health channel, as well as in eighteen documentaries.
 
David Bullard David Bullard, Ph.D., David is the current president of the San Francisco Psychological Association for the third time and has had a private practice of individual psychotherapy and couples therapy for over 40 years. He is a clinical professor in the departments of medicine, and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, where he has been an advisor to spiritual care services and a consultant to outpatient palliative care staff at UCSF’s Helen Diller Family Cancer Center. David also has been a mentor in the center for psychedelic therapies and research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

His latest publications include research on a paradigm-shifting trauma therapy, “Flash Technique in a scalable low-intensity group intervention for COVID-19 related stress in healthcare providers,” (2021, Manfield, P., Engel, L., Greenwald, R., & Bullard, D.G., in the Journal of EMDR Practice and Research. Vol 15, Issue 2); the chapter “Allan Schore on the science of the art of psychotherapy: Interview” (2019, Schore, A.N., Right brain psychotherapy, New York: Norton); and the chapter co-authored with Christine Derzko, M.D. “Sexual Problems” (2019, in Behavioral Medicine: A Guide for Clinical Practice, 5th edition (2019, McGraw-Hill Medical).

David has published additional interviews for psychotherapy.net with H.H. the Dalai Lama’s translator/editor Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., and with the psychotherapists Allan Schore, Ph.D.; Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.; Mark Epstein, M.D.; Ida Gorbis, Ph.D.; George Silberschatz, Ph.D.; and Lonnie Barbach, Ph.D.; and has published conversations with Tibetan Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman, Ph.D.