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Key points
- Dysmorphia affects far more people and in far more ways than commonly appreciated.
- Dysmorphia refers to our capacity to perceive characteristics about ourselves in distorted and dysfunctional ways.
- Dysmorphia can include external distortions such as body dysmorphia or internal distortions such as self-worth.
Since the time of the Buddha—circa 6th century BCE—spiritual leaders have tried to impress upon us a potentially liberating idea: we live in a state of delusion. Although this ancient idea assumed many forms over subsequent centuries of religion, culture, science, and self-help books, it appears no less true now than when originally taught thousands of years ago. Consider the disparity of modern times. In an era of objectively unprecedented levels of opportunity, wealth, longevity, equality, and peace, our lives seem dominated by their opposites. In astonishing numbers, healthy and attractive people now feel unlovable, high-achievers feel like imposters, productive people feel like slackers, people of strength and resourcefulness feel like victims, and millions struggle to find meaning and security in lives where calamity and catastrophe dominate every news cycle.
Although spiritual teachings suggest that it has always been difficult for us to separate reality from illusion, this perceptual feat has arguably never been more difficult than in modernity. In the field of mental health, perhaps the most famous example of the difficulty seeing ourselves objectively is a condition called body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia is diagnosed when a person perceives flaws in their body or appearance to a degree that causes dysfunction or even physical harm. This condition can take many forms: underweight people can perceive themselves as fat, healthy or even well-muscled people can perceive themselves as small or weak, and people of average or even above-average attractiveness can perceive themselves as disgusting or ugly. Importantly, people with body dysmorphia are usually impervious to objective evidence and suffer the profound emotional and physical repercussions of their distorted self-perceptions.
Body dysmorphia, however, is just one narrow manifestation of our ability to create dysfunctional self-illusions. Characterizing dysmorphia more broadly as an enduring state of negative emotions and behaviors resulting from misperceptions about the self, for example, dysmorphia possesses faces and forms so numerous as to affect people in every category of age, race, gender, and social strata of our society.
The figure above offers additional examples of dysmorphia:
- Body dysmorphia is the exaggerated perception of flaws or deficits in our physical bodies.
- Self-worth dysmorphia—becoming depressive disorders in severe forms—is the exaggerated perception of character flaws indicating worthlessness or meaninglessness.
- Productivity dysmorphia is the exaggerated perception of being inefficient and lazy, often despite strong objective evidence of the opposite.
- Happiness and love dysmorphia are the exaggerated perceptions of being less happy and experiencing less love and connection than others.
- Risk dysmorphia—which can become anxiety disorders in severe forms—is the exaggerated perception of being at risk of failure, harm, or victimization.
- Achievement dysmorphia—often called imposter syndrome—is the exaggerated perception of being inadequate and inferior relative to one's peers, usually despite evidence to the contrary in the form of credentials, experiences, and successes.
Expanded to include these broader examples of dysmorphia, it may be less accurate to question whether a given person experiences dysmorphia than to wonder which and how many forms of dysmorphia are affecting them. Given that every form of dysmorphia is a barrier to health and happiness—irrespective of objective progress or improvements around or within us—dysmorphia may represent one of the most important contributors to our modern state of dysphoria.
Why is dysmorphia so common, both in ancient times and especially in modernity? Firstly, many forms of dysmorphia result from our reflexive tendency to engage in social comparisons. We usually evaluate ourselves not by objective standards but by subjective standards created by our peer groups and cultures. Because it is almost always possible to find other people in our groups experiencing greater success or satisfaction in any dimension, our perceptual reality easily becomes one of inferiority. True even in the earliest societies, social media tools have now magnified the size of our reference groups from local to global and the frequency of these comparisons from occasional to incessant, making it even easier to feel inadequate.
Second is our equally native tendency to "move the goal posts." No matter how much health, wealth, love, or success we obtain, emotional satisfaction frequently seems like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow we can never reach. When progress doesn't bring satisfaction, unfortunately, we usually delude ourselves into believing that the next relationship, next promotion, or next achievement will be different while failing to appreciate that the true obstacle is our unconscious habit of continuously resetting our success standards. The result is the perception of living on a treadmill, where you have to run as fast as you can just to avoid falling into the abyss.
Summary
Dysmorphia is one of humanity's oldest and most persistent psychological challenges. Appreciated fully, dysmorphia can make it difficult to enjoy physical and emotional well-being no matter the objective progress achieved in our societies or personal lives. While you may have never considered yourself as suffering from dysmorphia, this expanded description may offer greater insights into the nature of your personal struggles and suggest real solutions for higher quality living.
