Psychotherapy for Body Image issues

Human bodies attract a lot of attention in our culture: popular press and the media seem to promote personalities with apparently healthy, thin, fit, good looking bodies. Our concern for the maintenance of good looks is not new and can be traced back to ancient cultures.

However, for reasons very different to those of ancient peoples, contemporary individuals find themselves entertaining views about who they are, and ultimately about their bodies and how they look, that don’t necessarily resonate with their own sense of who they really are. The result of this can be, aside from the frequent replication of stylistic looks that seem to erase individual uniqueness, the development in the individual of intense feelings of something lacking, whether real or fictitious. This at times can lead people to invasive interventions that under different circumstances could be seen as unnecessary. Equally, it can drive people into despair for they are unable to bear the consequences of what might be perceived as a radical bodily change when that is both appropriate and necessary - especially in cases when people are recovering from an accident, or struggling with disfigurement or other physical disability.

Existential - phenomenological psychotherapy can support you in considering the reasons behind your decision, or not, to alter/ enhance/ improve your bodily features, in a safe and non-judgemental way. It is in such moments that the existential view of meaning coming from the person, and preceding the situation, manifests itself most powerfully.

Having said that we can explore your own sense of what it is that encourages you to be e.g. thin or overweight, of having cosmetic surgery etc., and open up the possibility to consider another way of dealing with the issue at the heart of the problem.

To learn more about certain types of body image issues affecting emotional and mental health, and for information on a healthier lifestyle please read further...

Pan Tekosis