AREAS OF PRACTICE
Body Image
When a focus on your appearance starts to shape how you live, it can be exhausting. You might check mirrors constantly or avoid them altogether, compare yourself to others, or skip photos and plans because of how you feel about your appearance. Harbourside therapists offer focused, practical support to help loosen that hold.
Approaches
Evidence-Based Approaches for Body Image and Body Dysmorphia
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
CBT
Your therapist helps you notice the thoughts and beliefs that drive appearance worries, and build a more balanced, less critical relationship with your body.
Exposure and Response Prevention
ERP
Gradually facing situations you've been avoiding while reducing checking, comparing and reassurance-seeking, so the urge to do them weakens over time.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
ACT
Making room for uncomfortable thoughts about your appearance without letting them decide how you live, and putting energy back into what matters to you.
Other approaches as needed. Your therapist draws on additional approaches when they fit your needs and goals.
When Appearance Worries Become Body Dysmorphia
Most people have parts of their appearance they don’t love. Body dysmorphia is different. It involves a preoccupation with perceived flaws that others often don’t notice or see as minor, and it starts to affect daily life.
You might notice:
Spending hours thinking about one or more parts of your appearance
Checking mirrors repeatedly, or avoiding them completely
Hiding perceived flaws with clothing, makeup, posture or lighting
Asking others for reassurance about how you look
Avoiding photos, social plans, work or dating
Seeking cosmetic changes that don’t bring lasting relief
The process
What to Expect in Therapy at Harbourside
Talking about appearance worries can feel exposing. Harbourside therapists keep the process private, collaborative and paced to you.
Understanding the Cycle
You and your therapist look at what triggers your appearance worries and the habits, like checking or avoiding, that keep them going.
Building Your Toolkit
Practical skills for working with critical thoughts and the urges to check, compare or hide.
Gentle, Gradual Practice
Step by step, you face situations you've been avoiding, at a pace you choose. You are never forced or rushed.
Getting Your Time Back
As the preoccupation eases, more of your time and energy goes to your life, work and relationships.
Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Is online therapy effective for body image concerns?
Many people find video sessions easier for this kind of work, since they can take part from a comfortable, private space without being seen in a waiting room.
How is body dysmorphia different from low self-esteem?
Low self-esteem is a general sense of not feeling good enough. Body dysmorphia centres on specific perceived flaws in appearance and the time-consuming habits that build up around them. Your therapist can help make sense of what's going on for you.
How long does therapy for body image take?
It depends on what you're dealing with and your goals. Your therapist reviews progress with you regularly so you can decide together what comes next.
Find a Therapist at Harbourside
Every therapist at Harbourside works in specific areas.
Choose what you'd like help with to see who fits, or let us match you.
