Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) – Body Dysmorphia Therapy Surrey
Symptoms of BDD can improve with the help of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
CBT can help you learn your triggers and ways to change unhelpful thoughts or behaviours. At Centre for Psychology, our therapists are here to listen and support you in a non-judgemental way. Working with your therapist, you can gradually feel less anxious about your body image, appearance and any perceived flaws. Therapy sessions can help you to better understand the body dysmorphia and be able to face situations without feeling so self-conscious or obsessing over the way you look. CBT can help you let go of those time-consuming and unhelpful compulsive behaviours or routines that you may find yourself stuck in.
Tel: 01483 901 429 Email: guildford@centreforpsychology.co.uk
Body dysmorphia, or body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an anxiety disorder that is characterised by lots of worrying and preoccupation about your appearance or body image. These worries relate to single or multiple perceived flaws on a specific area of the body or face. BDD is very emotionally distressing and does not mean that someone is being vain. BDD may lead to feelings of depression, anxiety, shame, guilt, self-harm, or not wanting to be here. BDD can overlap and share similarities with other mental health conditions like OCD, eating disorders, perfectionism, or low self-esteem, but they are not the same.
With BDD, you might have negative intrusive thoughts about a body part being disfigured, asymmetrical, too big, too small or out of proportion. Muscle dysmorphia is another type of BDD where people have worries about their body being too skinny, small or not muscly enough. People with BDD see themselves differently, and their perceived flaws are usually unnoticeable to others. You might find that you spent lots of time comparing your appearance to others.
All consuming behaviours
Dealing with body dysmorphia can have a huge impact on daily life and functioning and can lead to time consuming behaviours in an attempt to manage anxiety. Common compulsions relate to effortful ways of hiding, camouflaging or concealing the perceived flaws. For example: checking your appearance, avoiding mirrors, wearing heavy make-up or baggy clothes, seeking reassurance, body checking, skin-picking, excessively using self-tan or obsessively styling your hair. You might think that you need cosmetic surgery, unnecessary procedures or misuse steroids, drugs or alcohol. It may also lead to avoiding situations that cause anxiety such as intimacy, seeing other people or social events.
If you know which region you live in, then feel free to complete the referral form for that area. Don’t worry if you don’t know, we will ensure your referral gets to the right place either way. If you are a professional referring a client, then please complete the Professional Referral form.
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions… for a full list of FAQs, please visit our main FAQs page.
As a service we like to keep our waiting lists as short as possible, therefore we require you to attend all your sessions and we request that you let us know in advance if you are unable to attend an appointment so that your slot can be offered to another client. If you do not attend your appointment and we do not hear from you on that day you may be discharged from our service back to the care of your GP. We do understand that you may have to cancel an appointment due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g., illness) but please let us know.
You can refer yourself by telephone or email. We also accept referrals that come to us from your GP and other external organisations that know your needs. One of our Assistant Psychologists will guide you through the process.
Following your assessment, we aim to offer an initial treatment session within 6 working weeks. Our assistant psychologists work daily on our waiting lists and will contact you by telephone when an appointment becomes available that matches your availability. You are likely to be seen sooner if you are flexible on your appointment time/location. Please let us know if you are able to accept a ‘short notice’ appointment.
It is always helpful to keep us updated about your personal circumstances using the contact details you have been given.
Our aim is to offer you an assessment within 10 working days of your referral to our service. Your assessment will usually be over the telephone. During your assessment, the therapist will provide you with the opportunity to explain why you have referred yourself to the service and what you would like support with. Your therapist will also require you to answer a series of questions about your current thoughts, behaviours, physical symptoms, and emotions. The therapist will work with you to discuss a treatment plan should our service be suitable for you. If our service is not the most suitable service for you, the therapist will discuss alternative services to signpost you to.
Should you be unable to attend a telephone assessment we can arrange for you to attend a face-to-face assessment. This may however be a longer wait based on therapist availability.
Psychological therapy is not like taking physical medication. We all respond differently to psychological therapy. Guidance suggests that attending six sessions of CBT is a good starting point. We ask that you attend your pre-booked sessions, engage with the out-of-session tasks and show improvement on the psychological measures. In return, we will continue to work with you.
Occasionally we may recommend that your GP refers you to a different service. If this happens your therapist will talk about the reasons for such a referral.
That’s okay, our therapists are trained to work with you at your telephone assessment to decide on what is the most appropriate form of therapy for your current difficulties.
To maintain confidentiality we would usually recommend that you attend your sessions individually, however, if you require someone to attend your sessions with you then please let us know when your initial appointment is booked so that your therapist can be informed.
We do not have creche facilities so please arrange appropriate childcare for your sessions.
We predominantly offer appointments from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday. We are unable to offer individual appointments at the weekend. We do offer evening courses from 6pm-8pm including: Mindfulness and Stress Management, Anxiety and Depression Management, and our Sleep Clinic.
We are a Surrey-wide service and will always aim to offer you an appointment in a location that is accessible to you, however, you may be required to travel a short distance. The location offered to you will take into account the type of support you are accessing, your availability, and therapist availability.
As a way of increasing availability Centre for Psychology also offers telephone and video sessions which are often more convenient to attend. You will still receive the materials you need either by post or via the internet.
We do not provide support for people under the age of 17. If you are under 17 and feel you would benefit from psychological support we would encourage you to book an appointment with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate services.
If English is not your first language this does not mean that you cannot access our service. Our therapists are trained to work with clients using an interpreter which we will arrange for you. Please translate this page to another language by using the button (bottom left) on any page.
If you are registered with a qualifying GP Surgery in Surrey and over 17 years old then all your therapy is free to you. Centre for Psychology is paid by your local NHS Commissioning Group.
If you do not qualify we are still able to provide you with therapy. There are many reasons that you may wish to self-fund your therapy please contact us for our current fee structure.
If you live in England there are other NHS-funded services providing free therapy. Use the following link to find yours:
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-psychological-therapies-service
