Roll with It: Loving the Body You Have

By Dr. Robin Pittman

Follow Dottie on her Journey of discovery as she realizes she has many of the symptoms of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Join her as she learns the way to take back her power and shares these techniques with you! Roll With It is a wonderful reference book for anyone unhappy with their appearance. It is useful for friends and family too, and can help them better understand what their loved one is going through.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504379007

Dr. Robin Pittman

Robin Pittman earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Sonoma State University and her Master and Doctorate of Psychology in Clinical Psychology from Alliant International University California School of Professional Psychology. She provided therapy for patients with body image dissatisfaction, eating disorders, dementia, alzheimers, children, and with highly dysfunctional individuals. She has 40 years of experience working in many healing modalities, including Transcendental Meditation™, Trager Movement Re-Education™, Educational Kinesiology™, Reiki, Integrated Awareness Technique™, and Soma Pi™. Robin is currently providing soul to soul intuitive readings.

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Copyright © 2017 Dr. Robin Pittman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-7901-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7900-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909316

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/07/2017

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Hi, I’m Dottie

Chapter 2 Bamboozled by Beliefs

Chapter 3 You Must Be Lying

Chapter 4 The End of Oppression

Chapter 5 Let’s Abandon the Myths

Chapter 6 Finding an Amazing Therapist

Chapter 7 Lessons of CBT

Chapter 8 Exploring New Perspectives

Chapter 9 Afterward

Recommended Reading

About the Author

Endnotes

Introduction

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a condition in which the individual is preoccupied with a perceived defect in appearance. Although the actual defect may be slight or even non-existent, the concern is excessive, causing impairment in social and occupational functioning. Some people look in the mirror and all they see is a minor imperfection on their nose; others avoid mirrors entirely because of the stress of confronting an image that has become warped and exaggerated by their mind. Common areas of concern include hair thinning, acne, wrinkles, scars or the shape of the face or head. Any body part can be the focus of concern and sometimes the entire body or several areas are the focus. People find this preoccupation to be uncontrollable and often describe it as devastating. Many individuals will describe a feeling that they are generally ugly all over. This painful experience leads them to avoid mirrors altogether or spend hours in front of the mirror trying to fix the perceived problem. They become self-conscious about the perceived defect and will often avoid social situations including work. (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013).

Symptoms of this disorder exist on a continuum from severe symptoms consistent with the DSM-IV to mild but stressful concern over one’s appearance (Phillips, 2005). This is seen, for example, in clinical situations with patients who believe that they must be thinner, sometimes approaching the diagnosis of anorexia nervosa. Typically clinicians will recognize symptoms of both anorexia and BDD in a subset of their patients even if they do not make either diagnosis. A common kind of BDD involves feeling oversized even when one is actually relatively thin. This type of BDD may be so prevalent because the widespread prejudice against being large or appearing to be overweight is entrenched in our culture and has become increasingly prevalent over the last 30 years (Pine, 2001). One group that is particularly vulnerable to this kind of BDD are women, starting from around puberty (though females as young as 5 have communicated concerns about their weight), but lasting on into their adulthood. Elements of this disorder may be self-perpetuating as when women have daughters of their own, they may pass on sensitivity about the size and shape of their bodies (Birbeck & Drummond, 2003). Hahn-Smith and Smith (2001) have proposed that the child’s identity develops through a parallel process to the same-sex parent defined as body sameness.

One therapeutic tool that has been used to combat disorders that share elements with BDD is the use of books that provide psychoeducation and guidance in the systematic un-training of one’s own symptoms. This book may be an especially good fit for BDD because it does not involve confronting one’s anxieties directly such as in social situations that are especially painful for sufferers of BDD. Instead the reader can first focus on