History of BDD

Topic Index

A History of Body Dysmorphic Disorder

BDD was first documented in 1886 by an Italian psychopathologist named Enrique Morselli and at the time he named the condition "Dysmorphophobia". Body Dysmorphic Disorder was not published in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1987. They decided to rename the disorder from Dysmorphophobia to Body Dysmorphic Disorder because they believed the old term implied to the presence of a behavioural pattern of public avoidance. In the fourth edition of the DSM, it was subsequently renamed
Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

In his practice, Psychologist Sigmund Freud once described a patient who was so preoccupied with his nose, that he found it hard to function outside of
these obsessive thoughts, avoiding all public life and working life. The patients name was Sergei Pankejeff, whom was also referred to in reports by the nickname "the Wolf Man". It would seem Sergei Pankejeff had all the classic symptoms of BDD.