Childhood Abuse, Body Shame, and Addictive Plastic Surgery: The Face of Trauma

by Mark B Constantian

Childhood Abuse, Body Shame, and Addictive Plastic Surgery explores the psychopathology that plastic surgeons can encounter when seemingly excellent surgical candidates develop body dysmorphic disorder postoperatively. By examining how developmental abuse and neglect influence body image, personality, addictions, resilience, and adult health, this highly readable book uncovers the childhood sources of body dysmorphic disorder. Written from the unique perspective of a leading plastic surgeon with extensive experience in this area and featuring many poignant clinical vignettes and groundbreaking trauma research, this heavily referenced text offers a new explanation for body dysmorphic disorder that provides help for therapists and surgeons and hope for patients.

320 pages, Hardcover

Published December 13, 2018

Reviews

[Robin]

It is completely baffling to me how a psychology book written about body image can be so fatphobic and completely miss the entire psychology and history behind the "fat acceptance movement" (as he puts it in quotation marks to really double down on how he does not believe the term should even exist). This shows such an ignorance of basic human biology, psychology, and dignity, everything else written in this book completely looses its credibility.

I deeply regret having spent money on this, and even more that some of it will go to the author. I'm currently contemplating whether I should just throw it into the trash.

(If you're curious about reading about the fat acceptance movement from people involved in it, and not just from hateful voices from outside of the community, Aubrey Gordon would be a great point to start educating yourself. If the author of this book would have cared to do that for one second and just had listened for two, the outcome would have been completely different.)

[Mark B.]

New theory of body image disorders that links it to other addictions and self-harming behaviors. Fascinating patient vignettes. Unexpected humor smooths this difficult subject.

[IU_read]

Informative reading. This book provide me a new perspective of plastic surgery addiction