Ep25 Rachel Koutnik – recovering from body dysmorphic disorder

A psychotherapist and the founder and director of the Los Angeles BDD & Body Image Clinic, Arie has dedicated his career to working with people with BDD. In this episode, he shares some of the fascinating insights he’s gained from those thousands of hours of experience.

After suffering with BDD for many years, Tilly is now reaping the benefits of all the time and effort she put into recovering from the condition. Her story proves that if you keep putting in the work, you will get something out of it.

Eva has been recovered from BDD for 20 years, so brings loads of wisdom and experience to this episode. (Which is number 27, not 26, as I say in the intro!) It’s a little different from the others in that Eva tells us her story directly, in four parts.   

George shares his lived experience of muscle dsymorphia, dips into the huge amount of knowledge he’s gained and explains why he’s made it his life’s work to raise awareness and improve treatment of the condition.

Rachel shares her experience of BDD and how everything from working at a cat hotel to learning ballroom dancing has helped her to manage the disorder and find joy.

Simon describes how the brutal bullying he suffered at school set him on a long journey with body dysmorphic disorder, which culminated in a transformative stay in psychiatric hospital and writing a book about his experiences. 

Berni hid what she called her “secret shame” for 40 years before discovering she’d been suffering from skin-picking disorder – a common co-morbidity with body dysmorphic disorder that can also manifest on its own. She’s since learnt how to say no to the skin-picking voice and has even appeared in a naked calendar.

Ten years ago, Andy used to spend eight hours a day in front of the mirror and couldn’t imagine ever being able to function. Now, he works full time and describes himself as 90% to 95% recovered from body dysmorphic disorder

Flora suffered with body dysmorphic disorder alongside an eating disorder until just 18 months ago. Since then, she’s made truly inspirational progress is overcoming BDD, and built up a personal toolkit of tricks that will be really helpful to listeners.

In his interview, Elias describes how doing exposures was a huge help in recovering from body dysmorphic disorder