People are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the way they look, and they are desperate to acquire a ‘designer body’ with perfect looks. This talk on psychoanalytic reflections on appearance anxiety was organized by Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health, Neuro & Allied Sciences in collaboration with India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. It was a part of a 12-month interactive series on Indian psychoanalysis (2012 -2013) curated by Pulkit Sharma who had set up a psychoanalytic therapy unit at VIMHANS, New Delhi.
The speaker Pulkit Sharma is a well-known clinical psychologist, psychoanalytic therapist, spiritual counselor and author now based in Pondicherry, India. In this talk, Pulkit Sharma draws upon his rich psychotherapy and research experience to talk about people who have a severe anxiety due to mild or imaginary defects in their physical appearance.
Highlights of the talk:
1. Signs and symptoms of appearance anxiety
2. The triad of ugly self, traumatic childhood and cognitive distortions
3. Cultural ideals of physical beauty and media influence
4. Dealing with appearance anxiety
#bodypositivity #looks #obsession #pulkitsharmaclinicalpsychologist #authorpulkit
The speaker Pulkit Sharma is a well-known clinical psychologist, psychoanalytic therapist, spiritual counselor and author now based in Pondicherry, India. In this talk, Pulkit Sharma draws upon his rich psychotherapy and research experience to talk about people who have a severe anxiety due to mild or imaginary defects in their physical appearance.
Highlights of the talk:
1. Signs and symptoms of appearance anxiety
2. The triad of ugly self, traumatic childhood and cognitive distortions
3. Cultural ideals of physical beauty and media influence
4. Dealing with appearance anxiety
#bodypositivity #looks #obsession #pulkitsharmaclinicalpsychologist #authorpulkit
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:02One thing is for sure that in the last 20-25 years, if you look at the way the importance
00:13that people have started giving to how they look or the importance that they are forced,
00:18you know, I would say that maybe not everyone out of their free will gives importance to
00:24how they look.
00:24They are being forced by, you know, the popular impressions and whatever is happening to look
00:31into that direction.
00:32You know, I guess given a choice and given freedom and a space, many people may want to
00:39simply, you know, walk out of it or less in this.
00:44So, it has been a growing obsession, there has been, now almost every street corner has
00:51a slimming institute, a health club, a beauty institute, a plastic surgeon, various other
01:00things, you know, various other things that one can see, all which promise you that if
01:07you come to us, you will get a good body.
01:11And, why do you need a good body?
01:13Because they claim, and that is what we might use, once you have a good body, you will have
01:20a lot of goodness in your life, you will have a good partner, you will have a good profession,
01:25you will have a good confidence, you will have happiness, so that's how it goes on.
01:32So, the body or the appearance is not just appearance, it has become sort of a key to unlock a
01:41treasure
01:41of happiness which everyone is very, very keen to get.
01:51So, physical appearance has come to be overloaded with meaning.
01:55It always had a meaning, you know, like when two people, you know, when you see someone
02:01attracted, I mean many, many interesting researchers actually have seen that the babies who look
02:10good or who are cute, they are the ones, you know, that people who really want to pick
02:16up and play with and they tend to have nice experiences as growing up children.
02:20So, physical appearance always had some meaning, some connotation.
02:26You know, all cultures have talked about it, they have had elaborate, you know, the thesis
02:33on how to have a good physical appearance, in their art, in their sculpture you see glimpses
02:41of it, but in the present context it is becoming extremely overloaded with meaning.
02:48There's this image, there's this image that's created of a so-called designer body, you know,
02:53that it's no more a human body, it's more like a designer body, you know.
03:00The kind of nose, you know, your nose should be like this, the jawline should be like this,
03:05hair should be like this, your biceps should measure this inches, you know.
03:22So, there's this hypothetical image of designer bodies and there is a whole bunch of health products, beauty treatments,
03:33and obviously the surgeon's knife to help people achieve that.
03:38And, many people are in this circle, there are some who think that why they are in this circle,
03:45but there are some who don't think why they are in this circle.
03:47There are people who run in this circle and who have been running in this circle,
03:52who, you know, crawl on to see, you know, say every week, how much are they gaining,
03:57how much are they losing, and who get really distressed.
04:04One thing is to be concerned about how much you are gaining, but one thing,
04:10it's a totally different thing to be distressed about how much you are gaining.
04:14So, there are people who are very distressed.
04:16There are people who, they have a pimple on their face and they will be very, very distressed.
04:25As I said, it's always very normal and natural to be concerned about one's appearance and enhance it.
04:31It's a very basic human way of living.
04:35But, and given a choice, a large majority of people would say that why not?
04:41I would want a good skin, I would want, you know, thick hair, I would want attractive features,
04:47I would want a well toned body, why not?
04:50So, that's not what we are talking about, you know.
04:54But, we are talking, largely focusing on this segment of people.
04:58For some people, these concerns cross over into a sort of preoccupation.
05:03That appearance comes to be one major thing or theme in their life,
05:09and their life starts revolving around this idea that they should look beautiful
05:15and they would go to various lengths to do that.
05:20I remember the first, you know, case of disorder I had seen.
05:25And initially, I was not really so much, I mean, I was very open to people being concerned about their
05:32weight
05:33or about their appearance.
05:34But this one person whom I had, like, seen approximately 11 years ago,
05:42I called him Mr. K, he told me that he had taken, he had undergone two nose surgeries.
05:52He felt that his nose was very flat and it was not triangular and it was not in the way
05:59it should be,
06:00like, you know, my nose is also not like that, the way it should be, you know.
06:03So, he had undergone two different surgeries, but after each surgery, he ended up feeling even more horrible about his
06:12nose.
06:13He claimed that the surgeon had done a very horrible job, that the nose was not the way it should
06:20have been.
06:22The surgeon, on the other hand, mentioned that he had a good period of experience in this surgery
06:28and he had done his best, you know, to give this person the kind of nose that this person wanted.
06:36But, each time after surgery, this person had become more and more concerned about his nose.
06:45And interestingly, his image or his feeling about his nose was not constant.
06:52It would change on, at times, on a daily basis.
06:57You know, that one day he would get up and look in the mirror and say,
06:59it's not so bad, it's okay.
07:02But the second day when he would get up and have a look, he would say,
07:04that it's extremely horrible, how can I walk out with this nose?
07:08Apart from that, after these two nose drops, he was now considering the third one,
07:13he had really become concerned about some acne scars that had been there, you know, from his teenage.
07:22And he was now also seeking some kind of treatment for them.
07:27His surgeon now was very concerned because the surgeon had a sense that,
07:31if I go on giving this person treatments, then there may be a case that he may still be more
07:40and more dissatisfied with his appearance.
07:43And that's why the surgeon had a sort of psychological consultation.
07:49So that's the way in some people that these concerns can really blow up into.
07:55And we'll be talking more about them today.
07:58So they start suffering from what is known as the appearance anxiety,
08:02that you are very anxious about your appearance.
08:05or it's severe psychiatric, psychological disorder, which is called the body dysmorphic disorder.
08:15These people jettled up a preoccupation with mild or even imagined defects in their appearance.
08:24And their lives get structured around hiding or getting rid of these secrets.
08:31What happens is, all of us, if you were to look at her face or at her body,
08:35all of us will have one or two areas in which we don't like, or maybe more.
08:40We may not like her face, we may not like, you know, to bear her body fat is distributed on
08:44her body.
08:45We may not like, you know, say some marks on her body.
08:48We may not like, you know, we may want a few more hair at some places.
08:52We may not want a few more hair at some places and various things like that.
08:57So we all would have some kind of real defects and some kind of mild defects.
09:07If someone has a very real severe defect, you know, someone with a faceburn
09:13or someone with a weight like very very abnormal, then anxiety would be genuine.
09:25It will be warranted in that case.
09:28But, in quite a few cases, you know, where other people around the person may feel that,
09:36you know, that this is not really something to be so much concerned about.
09:40Or, yeah, it is there, it's not such a pity.
09:43But the person is really concerned about that, then it can be, it is a mild defect.
09:50In people who are concerned about their opinions, there can also be at times certain imaginary defects.
09:56Now, imaginary defects do not mean that they are delusional or they are imagining something to be grossly ugly.
10:03It's just that they, when they look at any feature or part of their body, they find it very repulsive.
10:11And they find it defective in some gross sense and they want to change it.
10:21People suffering from appearance anxiety focus exclusively on a few negatives.
10:27That's the problem of these people.
10:28Like, people who are more or less normal, they would feel that, yes, I have this one scar over there.
10:34Or, you know, I don't have, like, six-pack abs.
10:38Or, you know, I don't have this kind of a very smooth, lustrous skin.
10:43Or, after the age of 40, I am having some kind of dark circles over here.
10:49Or, you know, some changes in my face and, you know, my skin has started sagging.
10:55But they can still recall in their mind certain positives about their appearance, hold on to them.
11:02And they give them more or less kind of a confidence in their appearance.
11:09That, fine.
11:10But the normal or average person would say that, yeah, you know, few negatives and few positives.
11:15I am an okay person overall.
11:17I can, like, you know, I can go like this and deliver a talk.
11:20I can go like this and date.
11:22I can go like this to update functions.
11:26Or, you know, the person can think of certain very positive attributes about their personality.
11:33And say that, fine, even if I am not good looking, I am a very confident person.
11:38Or, my body language is in a certain way.
11:41I can carry myself off well.
11:43So on and so forth.
11:44But these people, almost their 95% attention is rests on your mind.
12:01I can definitely think of them.
12:08You know, I have a lot of them on the way they do.
12:11But with an approach to an emotional response to an emotional response, you know, I am not
12:11But it is certainly that I would say that when I am not going to push, that is a real
12:13reflection, you know, you know, and you know, you know, you know, like this.
12:16you know, that, oh, my nose is like this, my skin has started sagging, I have fat on my belly,
12:28I have fat here, I have fat there.
12:32They may have a hard time relaxing and concentrating on other activities as they start dwelling on their appearance concerns.
12:40So what happens is that they would do, they would get into these two kinds of things, obsessions and compulsions.
12:47Obsessions would mean that the idea that they have a defect in their body or in their appearance would keep
12:54on coming back to their mind.
12:56So even when they are, you know, they are going about their daily activities or they are reading something, they
13:01are meeting someone,
13:02they would still carry this idea back in their mind and at times they are very distressed because even if
13:07they want to push out this idea from their mind,
13:10this idea does not go away and it keeps coming back in that my body is like this, my body
13:16is like this, my body is like this.
13:19And because they get very distressed by this idea, so then they start spending a lot of time, you know,
13:27in dealing with this thought or in trying to do something about their body.
13:32So someone who feels that their skin is very horrible, they will start reading a lot on how to, you
13:38know, get rid of those blemishes,
13:41they may start taking various kinds of treatments for that and those things will assume a lot of priority in
13:48their life.
13:48The more severe the preoccupation, the greater the priority it would require and more the number of obsessions and these
13:58compulsions.
13:59And at times these thoughts about the appearance can be so hauntingly severe that they start doing poorly in various
14:06spheres of their life.
14:07In their students they would have a hard time studying, if they are working, if it is hard to work.
14:14In their relationships also they would be, they would be like very anxious about being rejected, you know.
14:21And it's a hard time for them to leave themselves loose and relax and enjoy the fun.
14:30So that's how it happens.
14:33Like one person I remember who would kind of say that, you know this college student,
14:43she was so concerned about her face and her acne that rather than paying attention to her GMAT classes,
14:52she completely took off for them and she went on and signed up for a whole one month laser treatment
14:57for these scars.
14:59Well this is the reason why she was so inclined.
14:59She is the only one person who is working on studying, her face as her face as her face as
14:59her face as her face as her face being made.
14:59And she's at her hand and she is amazing.
14:59She has really enjoyed her, don't you, but even though with those of her started to change her face or
14:59her face is also interesting to everything.
Comments