What is it about?
This research explores how people with body image disturbance, including eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorder, experience their bodies differently. It looks at "embodiment illusions" - illusions that trick your brain into making you feel like a fake body part or another person's body is your own. Our review of the literature and the first of its kind found that people with more severe body image disturbance experience these illusions more strongly. Interestingly, experiencing these illusions actually helped improve body image in most cases. This suggests that how we process sensory information about our bodies may play an important role in body image disturbances, and manipulating this process could lead to new treatments for body image disorders.
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Why is it important?
This work is unique because it bridges gaps in understanding body image disturbance and potential treatments. Most current therapies focus on changing thoughts, feelings and behaviours, but don't directly address how people physically perceive their bodies (e.g., body shape/weight overestimation is common in eating disorders, but what underlies this misestimation and how do we treat it?). By showing that embodiment illusions can both reveal sensory mechanisms behind body image disturbance and potentially improve them, this research opens up exciting new avenues for both research and treatment. It's particularly timely given the rising rates of eating disorders and body image issues, especially among young people in the age of social media.
Perspectives
The idea that our perception of our bodies isn't fixed, but can be manipulated through sensory illusions, is both unsettling and exciting. It makes me wonder how much of my own body image is "real" versus a construction of my brain's sensory processing. The potential for new, complimentary treatments is particularly intriguing. While cognitive behavioral therapy and other current approaches can be helpful for eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder, relapse rates remain high and there is more to learn. Given current treatments often fail to address perceptual disturbances, this may represent an exciting new opportunity to improve current interventions. The idea of actually being able to "reset" (at least temporarily) how you perceive your body through these illusions seems like it could be a game-changer. However, I also have some concerns. If our body perception is this malleable, could these techniques be misused to create unrealistic body standards? And for those with severe eating disorders, could temporarily experiencing a different body through illusions potentially be triggering or harmful? Overall, though, I'm excited by this research. It offers a new way of understanding and potentially improving body image disturbance. I hope to see more studies in this area and, eventually, new treatment options that could help people develop a healthier relationship with their bodies.
Jade Portingale
University of Melbourne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Your body, my experience: A systematic review of embodiment illusions as a function of and method to improve body image disturbance., Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, June 2024, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/cps0000223.
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