Therapy for Body image issues

Body Image & Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) Therapy in San Diego & Virtual Therapy in California

Overview

Body image concerns can deeply impact your self-esteem, relationships, and overall quality of life. Whether you're navigating everyday body image distress or struggling with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), these challenges are valid and deserving of care. At Eating Disorder and OCD Therapy, we help clients shift from body obsession to body peace using compassionate, evidence-based, and anti-oppressive approaches. We offer in-person therapy sessions and virtual therapy for body image in California, Washington, Utah, and Florida. We also offer recovery coaching for body image issues, which is available worldwide.

Three women at the beach in San Diego.

Who Is Body Image Therapy for?

We work with teens and adults of all genders, body sizes, racial backgrounds, and neurotypes who are experiencing:

  • Daily distress or anxiety about body appearance.

  • Social withdrawal or compulsive behaviors related to body checking, grooming, or comparison.

  • Internalized shame or self-hatred related to body size, features, or skin.

  • Co-occurring eating disorders or OCD

  • Diagnosed or suspected Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

Therapeutic Approach

We view body image distress through a relational, cultural, and trauma-informed lens. Our treatment centers your unique lived experience; we aim to get at the root of your body image suffering vs. solely focusing on symptom management. Depending on your needs, we integrate:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Restructuring thinking traps and negative core beliefs about your body.

  • Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): Reducing compulsions and avoidance behaviors to break the obsessive cycle.

  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Learning to detach from unhelpful body image thoughts, utilize mindfulness skills and live by your values, even when it’s hard.

  • Feminist Therapy: Challenging oppressive beauty ideals rooted in cisheterosexism and white supremacy. Reclaiming the narrative over your body.

  • Relational Therapy: Exploring how family, culture, and past relationships shape your self-image. Having corrective emotional experiences in the therapeutic relationship to heal attachment wounds and develop a stronger sense of self.

  • Internal Family Systems (IFS): Working with protective parts of the self that developed in response to body image distress. Common “parts” in body image work include perfectionistic parts, people pleasing parts, eating disorders parts, self critical parts, etc.

Young adult sitting down at the beach in San Diego thinking about body image.

Common Client Goals

  • Reduce body-focused distress and anxiety

  • Stop engaging in compulsive behaviors (mirror-checking, grooming, comparing)

  • Heal from body shame, self-objectification, or internalized anti-fatness

  • Increase self-compassion and self-trust

  • Live more fully and engage in valued activities without being held back by appearance anxiety

  • Understand and work through the roots of BDD or chronic body image struggle

Session Structure

Sessions are available both in-person and virtually. Sessions are 50 minutes long unless otherwise agreed upon by your provider. Whether you're meeting with a San Diego body image therapist or accessing virtual therapy for body image in California, your first sessions will focus on establishing a positive therapeutic alliance and assessing your experience of body image distress. From there, we collaborate on which approaches to healing body image distress will best suit your unique needs. We commonly focus on understanding your body image story, unlearning harmful societal beliefs about body ideals and body hierarchies, heal underlying trauma impacting body image distress, create a coping plan to deal with body image triggers in a healthier manner, practice response prevention techniques (otherwise known as ritual prevention) in response to body image intrusive thoughts and utilize self compassion and mindfulness skills when coping with body image intrusive thoughts. We may also use somatic techniques to assist in building safety and reconnection to your body. Overall, sessions are focused on building a new relationship to your body that is free of judgement, shame and self criticism. You will learn to relate to your body the way a kind and loving parent relates to their child’s body.

Diverse bodies at San Diego Beach.

Special Features or Techniques

  • Support for both body image distress and clinical BDD

  • Integration of body liberation and social justice perspectives

  • Neurodivergent-affirming practices

  • Gentle exposure work, tailored to your comfort and consent

  • Parts work (IFS) to deepen healing for clients with trauma or inner conflict

  • Anti-fat bias and anti-oppression-informed interventions

We collaborate with you to identify what safety, empowerment, and self-acceptance look like —while helping you detach from beliefs about size, appearance and self worth. over time, you’ll start seeing your body through the lens of curiosity, compassion and neutrality, and begin living a more authentic life.

— Allyson Inez Ford, LPCC, Founder & CEO

Long-Term Benefits

  • Freedom from obsessive thoughts about perceived flaws

  • Decreased mirror checking, reassurance-seeking, and avoidance, increased capacity for more important thigns in life!

  • Stronger emotional regulation and reduced anxiety

  • Increased ability to engage in social, family and romantic relationships

  • Greater sense of self-worth, not based on appearance

  • A more compassionate, embodied relationship with yourself

Three women at San Diego beach feeling comfortable in their bodies.
Allyson, Georgia & Parisa stand in front of water fountain in Balboa Park

Ready to start therapy?

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Ready to start therapy? ⟡

At Eating Disorder OCD Therapy, we offer compassionate, relational, and individualized care, rooted in the belief that healing is not one-size-fits-all. Honoring client autonomy, collaboration, and anti-oppressive, neurodivergent-affirming practices, we walk alongside you as the expert in your own life. We provide therapy for Eating Disorders, OCD, Body Image, Trauma, Perinatal Mental Health, and offer Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP), Group Therapy (globally), Recovery Coaching (globally), and Clinical Consultation and Supervision for clinicians. We are currently accepting new clients for in-person therapy in San Diego and virtual services in California, Washington, Utah, and Florida.