"I Think I Look Ugly" – Body Dysmorphia

Most of us have a bad hair day or we're not happy if we have a little pimple on our face. But that's quite different from the experience of people with body dysmorphic disorder. (BDD) More than simple insecurity about one's appearance, BDD is a disorder in which a person's perception of their appearance becomes all-consuming and deeply distressing. Perfectly normal looking people can see themselves as horribly ugly. Or one minor detail becomes an enormous fixation, like the patient who said they felt they were just one giant pimple with hands and feet. In this episode, Dr. Phil Stieg speaks with psychiatrist and BDD expert Dr. Katharine Phillips about how altered visual processing in the brain leads individuals to fixate on minor and often imagined flaws, while behaviors like mirror-checking and reassurance seeking reinforce the cycle of negative perception. Dr. Phillips highlights the serious mental health risks associated with this condition and discusses evidence-based treatments that have led many patients to a meaningful recovery. For more information, transcripts, and all episodes, please visit For more about Weill Cornell Medicine Neurological Surgery, please visit

You can listen to "I Think I Look Ugly" – Body Dysmorphia online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

"I Think I Look Ugly" – Body Dysmorphia is an episode from This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg by Dr. Phil Stieg.

This episode is 31:57 long.

This episode was published on May 1, 2026.

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