Abstract

DEHANOV, Sara et al. Cognitive-behavioral therapy for body dysmorphic disorder: proposed models and efficacy. Psic., Saúde & Doenças [online]. 2019, vol.20, n.3, pp.618-629. ISSN 1645-0086.  https://doi.org/10.15309/19psd200306.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an incapacitating disease of high prevalence, which manifests itself through excessive concerns with one or more physical perceived defects. Up to date research has found cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) as an effective treatment for this disease. The objective of this work was to provide a structured review of the role of CBT in BDD, addressing cognitive-behavioral models and their effectiveness. Thus, a non-systematized review of the literature was carried out through a bibliographic research at PubMed. Results show that several studies have examined the factors influencing the aetiology and maintenance of BDD, allowing the development of cognitive-behavioral explanatory models about the disease’s symptoms. These models suggest that these patients selectively focus their attention on the perceived flaws and present dysfunctional cognitive schema about themselves and others. These schema result in incorrect evaluations of ambiguous social stimuli, which are interpreted as negative, leading to negative emotions. In order to reduce these emotions, they go through safety and/or avoidance behaviors that, working as negative reinforcements, perpetuate dysfunctional beliefs. The main components of CBT for BDD are psychoeducation, motivational enhancement strategies, cognitive restructuring, exposure with response prevention, perceptual mirror retraining and relapse prevention. The studies carried until now show good results of CBT for BDD. However, there is a high number of patients who still maintain significant symptomatology. Thus, despite CBT seeming effective in the treatment of BDD, it is still necessary to carry out additional research.

Keywords : body dysmorphic disorder; cognitive-behavioral therapy; cognitive-behavioral models; efficacy.

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