Body Dysmorphic Disorder
Choose one case study within the Barlow & Brown text assigned for your weekly reading. Read the case study, case conceptualization, treatment, and discussion thoroughly. In your initial post, please respond to ALL “THINKING CRITICALLY” questions at the end of your chosen case study for full points. To assist your classmates in their responses to you, please label your case with the number before beginning your initial post (i.e., Case #12). When responding to the questions, label each question before writing your response (i.e., 1., 2., 3., 4.). You must post your initial post before you are able to see responses from classmates.
Critical Thinking Questions For case study #6 Body Dysmorphic Disorder
- In this chapter the differential diagnosis of BDD was discussed. Given the overlapping features BDD has with other disorders, do you think it is best classified as an obsessive-compulsive, somatoform, anxiety, psychotic, or impulse control disorder? Why? In terms of anxiety-related disorders, do you think BDD is more similar to OCD or social anxiety disorder? Why?
- Current cognitive-behavioral treatments for BDD have several components, including self-monitoring, cognitive restructuring, ERP, behavioral experiment
to evaluate feared predictions, habit reversal training, and mirror retraining. Which of these treatment components do you feel is most important and why?
- Thus far, there is no strong evidence to indicate that there are marked sex differences in the prevalence and clinical presentation of BDD. Why might this be so? On what aspects of the clinical presentation of BDD (e.g., areas of appearance concern, types of behaviors employed to reduce appearance-related distress, associated features such as suicidality and aggression) do you think men and women are most likely to differ and why?
- As was noted in this chapter, BDD often goes undiagnosed by health professionals because patients do not report their symptoms due to embarrassment, shame, and the failure to recognize that their problem is due to a mental illness. Considering these potential barriers, what do you think would be the best way to screen for and identify BDD cases in health care or other settings (e.g., types of questions to ask, warning signs to look for)?