Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Clinical Aspects and Relationship to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder an obsessive-compulsive and related disorder that is common and usually causes substantial distress and impairment in psychosocial functioning. is associated with markedly poor quality of and rates of suicidal ideation and behavior. The pharmacologic approach is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, often at relatively high doses; serotonin reuptake inhibitors are also recommended for patients with delusional beliefs The firstlme psychosocial treatment is manualized cognitive-behavioral therapy that is to BDD's unique clinical features; it is not recommended that therapists simply apply cognitive-behavioral approaches for other disorders, such as compulsive disorder Because insight is so often absent or poor in motivational interviewing techniques are often needed to engage and retain patients in treatment. Cosmetic treatment surgery or dermatologic treatment) is not recommended because It appears to only rarely improve BOD symptoms and can even make them worse. BOD has many similarities to OCD and 1s probably closely relat~d to OCD, but the two disorders also have some important differences. From a clinical perspective, the most important differences are that BOD is characterized by poorer insight, more frequent comorbid major depressive disorder and substance use disorders, and more frequent suicidality. Although treatment approaches have similarities to those for OCD. effective cognitive-behavioral therapy for BOD meaningfully differs from that forOCD