body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and hallucinations

   The term body dysmorphic disorder was introduced in 1994 in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) to denote a disorder characterized by an imagined defect in appearance, or excessive concern or preoccupation with a slight physical defect. Although in clinical practice BDD can be diagnosed in the absence of any overt illusory or hallucinatory symptoms, in some cases an organic somatosensorial disturbance can be found to exist. It has been suggested that this disturbance may arise as a consequence of aberrant neu-rophysiological activity in the parieto-occipital regions representing the body schema. Such somatosensorial disturbances may entail *body schema illusions such as * microsomatognosia, *macrosomatognosia, *kinaesthetic hallucinations, and *proprioceptive hallucinations. In diagnostic classifications such as the DSM, BDD is classified as a somatoform disorder. A conceptual precursor of BDD was described in 1886 by the Italian psychiatrist Enrico Morselli (1852-1929). He called this nosological category dysmorpho-phobia.

   References

   American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual ofmental disorders. Fourth edition. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

   Morselli, E., Jerome, L. (2001). Dysmorpho-phobia and taphephobia: Two hitherto unde-scribed forms of insanity and fixed ideas. History of Psychiatry, 12, 103-107.

   Yaryura-Tobias, J.A., Neziroglu, F., Torres-Gallegos, M. (2002). Neuroanatomical correlates and somatosensorial disturbances in body dysmorphic disorder. CNS Spectrum,7, 432-434.