BDD-VITAC

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), a mental disorder from the group of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, is characterised by the fact that those affected are very concerned with certain aspects of their appearance and perceive them as unattractive or ugly. Other people do not or hardly recognise the perceived flaws. This discrepancy in self-perception and the perception of others implies that certain areas of the body are mentally distorted in people with CDD.

Body representations can be differentiated in terms of various dimensions, e.g. function and sensory modalities. It has already been well researched that people with CDD have negative attitudes and feelings towards their appearance, i.e. a cognitive-affective body image disorder. However, little is known about other body representations, such as perceptual body image or body schema. Accordingly, psychotherapeutic treatment of KDS primarily focusses on cognitive-affective processes, but with remission rates below 40%, there is room for improvement.

In the BDD-VITAC project, people with CDD are to be examined with regard to their perceptual body image and body schema based on both visual and tactile information. It will be investigated which body representations are distorted and whether people with CDD differ from mentally healthy people and from people with a high level of body dissatisfaction with regard to these body representations.