In Castle, Rossel, and Kyrios article in Psychiatric Clinics of North America on Body Dysmorphic Disorder, the authors state how body dysmorphic disorder lies in its links with obsessive-compulsive disorder and the consideration being given to its part of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum (Castle, Kyrios, & Rossel, 2006.) BDD is characterized with OCD because the patient has an obsession with a certain aspect of their physical appearance, and performs such rituals to mask or fix a flaw. The patients idea of their imperfections begins to hinder and inhibit the quality of their everyday lives. Both OCD and BDD have early onset, a characteristically chronic course, and occurs equivalently in both men and women. (Allen & Hollander, 2000).
In Veales analysis on BDD, he explains that the disorder must leave the patient in significant distress or handicap relative to the ability to maintain a job or socially interact. (2004) Patients will commonly avoid social situations in which they are not at ease or in which their appearances may get in the way. They are overly anxious about how others may look at them. Situations they avoid typically include places surrounded by mirrors or places with bright lighting, but situations can also become a problem where because of a particular person who might be present. With the social avoidance in BDD patients, there is a strong overlap of social anxiety disorders with the immense fear that someone may judge the patient adversely based on their appearances (Castle, Kyrios, & Rossel, 2006). Patients commonly withdraw from interacting with others, which strongly inhibits their social lives and can affect their educational and work performances extremely (Allen & Hollander, 2000).
Although there are genetic relations to BDD, the disorder can also stem from the patients childhood. Bullying and the media leave people with a perception of what they feel may be the perfect body image which are unrealistic and sometimes even dangerous to obtain.