What do you think?
Rate this book
Body Images: Development, Deviance, and Change
How does an individual form a body image? Where do the internal representations of one's body image intersect with the external bodily reality? How does a person adjust the image to reflect the changes wrought by aging, disease, deformity, or injury? What is the role of body images in the development of eating disorders and other psychological disorders? What psychotherapeutic and medical procedures facilitate positive body-image changes?
In the last two decades, questions such as these have spurred significant progress in the construction of a psychology of physical appearance, transcending disciplinary boundaries to incorporate elements from both the behavioral and biomedical sciences. Because the body-image construct is multidimensional and entails a rich diversity--body image is, more accurately, body-images--the most productive thinking on the topic requires an integration of both objective and subjective foci. Bringing the literature up to date, BODY DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE reviews and elucidates various concepts of body image, body-image development, psychosocially dysfunctional deviations from normal appearance, and methods of facilitating body image change.
The book's sixteen chapters are divided into six parts; each chapter has been written by a carefully chosen expert on the topic. The first part provides a historic overview of psychological concepts about the body, and introduces the procedures and problems of assessing body image. Part 2 covers the development of body images, exploring the contrast between "inside" and "outside" images, the sociocultural determinants of body image, and the role of body image in the psychosocial development across the life span. Part 3 explores the divergence and dysfunction of body Chapters 6 and 7 offer sensitive observations on the psychosocial impact of deviations from normal appearance such as congenital deformities, disfiguring injuries, and physical disabilities. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on individual of objectively "normal" appearance who suffer body-experience psychopathologies, for example, hypochondria, somatic delusions, eating disorders, and gender identity disorders.
Parts 4 and 5 concern the professional interventions that can alter negative or dysfunctional body images. Chapters 13 through 15 discuss the nature of the psychosocial change brought about through physical or psychological interventions, the integration of the changes into the sense of self, and the maintenance of the changes. The book concludes with a chapter by the editors, concisely summarizing the principal themes interwoven through the book.
BODY DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE had its genesis in the authors' first meeting. Though both are scientists and clinical practitioners, Cash works primarily as a researcher in an academic department of psychology and Pruzinsky works largely as a clinician in a medical school department of plastic surgery. They each felt a need to understand and incorporate the perspectives and experiences of each others work. This volume will be of enormous value to others with the same those studying and researching still unresolved and unexplored issues of body image, those who need an understanding of the issues of body image for their psychotherapeutic or medical practices. This book will be invaluable to all those whose work involves issues of human appearance.
In the last two decades, questions such as these have spurred significant progress in the construction of a psychology of physical appearance, transcending disciplinary boundaries to incorporate elements from both the behavioral and biomedical sciences. Because the body-image construct is multidimensional and entails a rich diversity--body image is, more accurately, body-images--the most productive thinking on the topic requires an integration of both objective and subjective foci. Bringing the literature up to date, BODY DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE reviews and elucidates various concepts of body image, body-image development, psychosocially dysfunctional deviations from normal appearance, and methods of facilitating body image change.
The book's sixteen chapters are divided into six parts; each chapter has been written by a carefully chosen expert on the topic. The first part provides a historic overview of psychological concepts about the body, and introduces the procedures and problems of assessing body image. Part 2 covers the development of body images, exploring the contrast between "inside" and "outside" images, the sociocultural determinants of body image, and the role of body image in the psychosocial development across the life span. Part 3 explores the divergence and dysfunction of body Chapters 6 and 7 offer sensitive observations on the psychosocial impact of deviations from normal appearance such as congenital deformities, disfiguring injuries, and physical disabilities. Chapters 8 and 9 focus on individual of objectively "normal" appearance who suffer body-experience psychopathologies, for example, hypochondria, somatic delusions, eating disorders, and gender identity disorders.
Parts 4 and 5 concern the professional interventions that can alter negative or dysfunctional body images. Chapters 13 through 15 discuss the nature of the psychosocial change brought about through physical or psychological interventions, the integration of the changes into the sense of self, and the maintenance of the changes. The book concludes with a chapter by the editors, concisely summarizing the principal themes interwoven through the book.
BODY DEVELOPMENT, DEVIANCE, AND CHANGE had its genesis in the authors' first meeting. Though both are scientists and clinical practitioners, Cash works primarily as a researcher in an academic department of psychology and Pruzinsky works largely as a clinician in a medical school department of plastic surgery. They each felt a need to understand and incorporate the perspectives and experiences of each others work. This volume will be of enormous value to others with the same those studying and researching still unresolved and unexplored issues of body image, those who need an understanding of the issues of body image for their psychotherapeutic or medical practices. This book will be invaluable to all those whose work involves issues of human appearance.
361 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
133 people are currently reading
635 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 16, 2022
I am an eating disorder dietitian and after going through the workbook to pick out thought experiments/handouts for clients, I have to say that this book FEELS like it's written by and for thin white folks. I had to remind myself over and over that this book was first published in 1997, with the second edition published in 2008. Body image does NOT exist in a vacuum of "just feeling bad about yourself," it NEEDS to be deconstructed in the context of white supremacy, medical fatphobia, and SYSTEMIC OPPRESSION. It is NOT just "all in their head" that a client is feeling poorly in their body and have now embodied body trauma.
I still gave this handbook 3/5 stars because at large, I think it's one of the only body image handbooks out there, and it can do more help than harm for some. However, 1 star docked because we all know by now that we must do better with trauma and intersectional identity work, and another star docked because many of the exercises are laced with are fatphobia, sexism, and overall reinforce some problematic beliefs.
My best advice is this: if you're a clinician, please read through the workbook to find what exercises and sections may be helpful (and not). Send your clients parts of the workbook, censor out what will likely be harmful and triggering. If you're a client/person looking to work on body image, know that this isn't the most comprehensive resource that I'd recommend any of my clients to buy and work through by themselves.
I still gave this handbook 3/5 stars because at large, I think it's one of the only body image handbooks out there, and it can do more help than harm for some. However, 1 star docked because we all know by now that we must do better with trauma and intersectional identity work, and another star docked because many of the exercises are laced with are fatphobia, sexism, and overall reinforce some problematic beliefs.
My best advice is this: if you're a clinician, please read through the workbook to find what exercises and sections may be helpful (and not). Send your clients parts of the workbook, censor out what will likely be harmful and triggering. If you're a client/person looking to work on body image, know that this isn't the most comprehensive resource that I'd recommend any of my clients to buy and work through by themselves.
September 1, 2021
This workbook is a step by step guide to learning to improve your body image. It's filled with worksheets and exercises that take some time and effort. Definitely worth the time and effort.
January 18, 2015
Absolute must have for anyone struggling with body image.
Proven program and well written. Thomas Cash is second to none in the field.
Proven program and well written. Thomas Cash is second to none in the field.
August 20, 2023
Some useful therapeutic resources - the acceptance and mindfulness chapter, body image measures, self talk examples, and writing activities are good templates to adapt for practice, but some aspects are very outdated eg language has echoes of upper class, western, femme white feminist perspectives of the body that exclude other bodily experiences.
Still on the fence with the mirror activities included.
Still on the fence with the mirror activities included.
August 14, 2022
Here's an outline of Thomas Cash's protocol for improving body image:
STARTING OUT
1. Find out where you're at. Score your body image using a quick questionnaire (provided in book). Use this starting position to set goals for how you'd eventually like to view your body.
2. Go through your past to understand how and why you got to where you are. What were the early life experiences, passive social conditioning, and other psychological variables that caused you to relate to your body the way you currently do? Again, Cash provides resources to guide you here.
DEVELOPING TOOLS
3. Learn mindfulness so that you can start to notice your automatic negative thoughts and be with them without pushing them away.
4. Identify your body image assumptions or 'self-schemas'. These are truths about the body that we mindlessly assume e.g. "Real men have big muscles", or "Physically attractive people have it all". Then, learn to challenge them by questioning their validity and value.
5. Identify your body image distortions. These are automatic negative thoughts that are distorted or biased. Cash provides 8 types of common body image distortions, similar to the common cognitive distortions discussed in CBT. Then, learn to challenge them with socratic questioning.
6. Identify your evasive actions. These are ways we avoid certain 'activators' of our negative body image. We correct, conceal, or compensate for what we think is wrong with us. But these evasive actions end up damaging our lives, and introduce an added layer of pain on top of our normal body image concerns. Use graded desensitisation for this.
7. Identify your body image rituals. These are body-checking and -fixing behaviours that we incessantly do which reinforce our body image via confirmation bias. If we feel fat, we will constantly pinch the most flabby areas of our body, for example. Then, for each ritual write down how confident you would be on a scale of 1-100 that you could refrain from this ritual if you were in the situation where it normally occurs. Build out a self-efficacy rating and then work through the list in a fashion similar to graded desensitisation.
8. Treat your body well. Honour your body, treat it for what it is; a divine vessel that you are infinitely lucky to own. View your relationship with your body like your relationship with your partner. If you had a partner with whom you had a 5:1 ratio of negative:positive interactions, you'd dislike the partner and want to leave them. The same is true of the body. Shift the ratio by first righting wrongs. Just as you would with a partner, start by literally writing a letter apologising to your body, promising improvements, and thanking it for the good things it has done for you. Then, start taking 'affirmative action'. These are actions that increase the mastery and pleasure you experience within your body. They fall into three categories: 1. Physical health/fitness (Honouring your body), 2. Sensate experiences (Experiencing your body), 3. Physical appearance (Glorifying your body). To sum this last step up: practice gratitude & appreciation towards your body, and act as if it's a sacred and blessed machine, because it is.
The good:
>Much needed book, especially given the increasing body image problems among teens & YAs.
The bad:
>This book is written mostly from authority and is very light on citations. I woulda liked a few studies that test whether or not these methods actually work. Ah well, will have to have a dig myself >:(
>WHY USE THE WORD ACCEPTANCE?! I HATE this about ACT & Body Image Psychology. They use the word "acceptance" in a way that implies observing things for what they are - in other words - to see clearly. This is what is called 'vipassana' (literally: 'insight') in Eastern traditions, and also pretty much equates to 'mindfulness'. I wish they used one of these two words, instead of acceptance. To most people, acceptance means more than clearly seeing. It implies a kind of pathetic defeatist attitude. To accept means to let something be and not attempt to change it. The fact that ACT and Body Image Psychology has uses a completely different definition for 'acceptance' confuses the fuck out of people, including me. Anyway, personal gripe. One more thing though is that they not only use acceptance wrongly, they try to pretend their new definition is different from mindfulness. It's literally the exact same shit. I quote: "Acceptance means seeing things as they really are, and seeing them in the present moment.", "Mindfulness is a way of consciously and purposefully stepping back and observing your inner experiences in the here and now". You could maybe argue that mindfulness is the process and acceptance is the outcome, but c'mon why not just use the term mindfully for everything instead of confusing tf out of people with acceptance. People are repulsed by this term acceptance.
>This book assumes that negative body image is ALWAYS a bad thing. Insofar as it can motivate a positive life, I think it's relatively common for it to be a good thing. If I got fat, I'd be thinking I looked mentally weak and physically like shit. I'd even feel like this thought was true. Would I get rid of that response if I could? No. Because I think it's extremely helpful that my standards keep me lean. People clean their lives up all the time as a function of their dissatisfaction with the present. In fact, the beautiful, prosperous world we live in today might be seen as almost entirely as a product of the incessant tendency of human beings to find problems and remain dissatisfied. Each individual has to decide whether their negative body judgements are making their life better or worse. For example, if you're pretty close to healthy and are experiencing diminishing returns when you work more on your body, is it really that productive to be having negative thoughts? Not really. But this more of an opinion than anything else. Other people might think differently. And this is where body image gets really complex imo. Especially considering that oftentimes negative thoughts and emotions lead to a poor eating & exercise behaviour, and therefore worse body image. Ah god it's just a mess. If this paragraph confuses you it's because this topic is confusing. Here are my final thoughts: People need to decide whether to work on their body image or not, and keep in mind two things. The first being the net impact of a more positive body image on their health & appearance. The second being the net impact of a more positive body image on their happiness. Sometimes body image improvements have counterintuitive effects on each of those two things, so they need to be considered in advance.
STARTING OUT
1. Find out where you're at. Score your body image using a quick questionnaire (provided in book). Use this starting position to set goals for how you'd eventually like to view your body.
2. Go through your past to understand how and why you got to where you are. What were the early life experiences, passive social conditioning, and other psychological variables that caused you to relate to your body the way you currently do? Again, Cash provides resources to guide you here.
DEVELOPING TOOLS
3. Learn mindfulness so that you can start to notice your automatic negative thoughts and be with them without pushing them away.
4. Identify your body image assumptions or 'self-schemas'. These are truths about the body that we mindlessly assume e.g. "Real men have big muscles", or "Physically attractive people have it all". Then, learn to challenge them by questioning their validity and value.
5. Identify your body image distortions. These are automatic negative thoughts that are distorted or biased. Cash provides 8 types of common body image distortions, similar to the common cognitive distortions discussed in CBT. Then, learn to challenge them with socratic questioning.
6. Identify your evasive actions. These are ways we avoid certain 'activators' of our negative body image. We correct, conceal, or compensate for what we think is wrong with us. But these evasive actions end up damaging our lives, and introduce an added layer of pain on top of our normal body image concerns. Use graded desensitisation for this.
7. Identify your body image rituals. These are body-checking and -fixing behaviours that we incessantly do which reinforce our body image via confirmation bias. If we feel fat, we will constantly pinch the most flabby areas of our body, for example. Then, for each ritual write down how confident you would be on a scale of 1-100 that you could refrain from this ritual if you were in the situation where it normally occurs. Build out a self-efficacy rating and then work through the list in a fashion similar to graded desensitisation.
8. Treat your body well. Honour your body, treat it for what it is; a divine vessel that you are infinitely lucky to own. View your relationship with your body like your relationship with your partner. If you had a partner with whom you had a 5:1 ratio of negative:positive interactions, you'd dislike the partner and want to leave them. The same is true of the body. Shift the ratio by first righting wrongs. Just as you would with a partner, start by literally writing a letter apologising to your body, promising improvements, and thanking it for the good things it has done for you. Then, start taking 'affirmative action'. These are actions that increase the mastery and pleasure you experience within your body. They fall into three categories: 1. Physical health/fitness (Honouring your body), 2. Sensate experiences (Experiencing your body), 3. Physical appearance (Glorifying your body). To sum this last step up: practice gratitude & appreciation towards your body, and act as if it's a sacred and blessed machine, because it is.
The good:
>Much needed book, especially given the increasing body image problems among teens & YAs.
The bad:
>This book is written mostly from authority and is very light on citations. I woulda liked a few studies that test whether or not these methods actually work. Ah well, will have to have a dig myself >:(
>WHY USE THE WORD ACCEPTANCE?! I HATE this about ACT & Body Image Psychology. They use the word "acceptance" in a way that implies observing things for what they are - in other words - to see clearly. This is what is called 'vipassana' (literally: 'insight') in Eastern traditions, and also pretty much equates to 'mindfulness'. I wish they used one of these two words, instead of acceptance. To most people, acceptance means more than clearly seeing. It implies a kind of pathetic defeatist attitude. To accept means to let something be and not attempt to change it. The fact that ACT and Body Image Psychology has uses a completely different definition for 'acceptance' confuses the fuck out of people, including me. Anyway, personal gripe. One more thing though is that they not only use acceptance wrongly, they try to pretend their new definition is different from mindfulness. It's literally the exact same shit. I quote: "Acceptance means seeing things as they really are, and seeing them in the present moment.", "Mindfulness is a way of consciously and purposefully stepping back and observing your inner experiences in the here and now". You could maybe argue that mindfulness is the process and acceptance is the outcome, but c'mon why not just use the term mindfully for everything instead of confusing tf out of people with acceptance. People are repulsed by this term acceptance.
>This book assumes that negative body image is ALWAYS a bad thing. Insofar as it can motivate a positive life, I think it's relatively common for it to be a good thing. If I got fat, I'd be thinking I looked mentally weak and physically like shit. I'd even feel like this thought was true. Would I get rid of that response if I could? No. Because I think it's extremely helpful that my standards keep me lean. People clean their lives up all the time as a function of their dissatisfaction with the present. In fact, the beautiful, prosperous world we live in today might be seen as almost entirely as a product of the incessant tendency of human beings to find problems and remain dissatisfied. Each individual has to decide whether their negative body judgements are making their life better or worse. For example, if you're pretty close to healthy and are experiencing diminishing returns when you work more on your body, is it really that productive to be having negative thoughts? Not really. But this more of an opinion than anything else. Other people might think differently. And this is where body image gets really complex imo. Especially considering that oftentimes negative thoughts and emotions lead to a poor eating & exercise behaviour, and therefore worse body image. Ah god it's just a mess. If this paragraph confuses you it's because this topic is confusing. Here are my final thoughts: People need to decide whether to work on their body image or not, and keep in mind two things. The first being the net impact of a more positive body image on their health & appearance. The second being the net impact of a more positive body image on their happiness. Sometimes body image improvements have counterintuitive effects on each of those two things, so they need to be considered in advance.
September 16, 2017
This workbook would a very valuable addition to body image work with clients in therapy.
October 15, 2022
4.5 Hoopla borrow after a sudden surge in clients with body concerns. First few chapters slow and not particularly helpful (too general to be of use), but later chapters outlined very practical strategies for challenging specific thought patterns and changing symptomatic behaviors. May order to make copies of worksheet pages for clients.
January 29, 2024
I got this book because I worked through it with my therapist. It kicked my butt and forced me to explore topics I did my best to avoid. While I don't have much of a review in the sense of "enjoyment", I felt it did its job: to push you to do hard things. I would recommend for anyone struggling with the concepts in this book/looking for a workbook to use in therapy.
February 11, 2022
Would've been better if it hadn't included some fatphobic language and ideas.
September 8, 2022
Useful and helpful book for every person living nowadays!
August 17, 2017
Excellent
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews