Should We Integrate Psychological Care with Cosmetic Surgery?
We have, at some point, felt like our body is not enough–we demanded more.
Back when we looked at our reflection in the mirror, all we saw was a portrait of an obnoxious portrayal of ourselves. More prevalent during puberty and more grateful after we passed our coming-of-age era and started to embrace our flaws, we then processed our thought to be more acceptable and tolerant of what we’re born with
However, there are some special cases in which someone was unable to resist the urge to change their appearance in accordance with current beauty trends and standards and therefore, they tried to fix their beauty. While I argue that was not the case for everyone who went to beauty clinics, this article will focus more on that particular aspect and special circumstances will not be discussed further in this article.
Plastic Surgery
When the world was in a turmoil, huge-ass chaos where European countries were fighting each other for an overreaching triumphant fame (a.k.a World War I), numerous soldiers returned to their hometown with disfigured appearance due to the serious damage from explosive materials. That was when plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery gained its first fame, although it was not the first time doctors performed plastic surgery.
However, nowadays’ purposes of undergoing plastic surgery is not sheer to disfigured appearance. One paper noticed that it was obvious that plastic surgery is now consumed more towards the desire of achieving beauty and this is due to the portrayal of body image in each realm of mind.
The needs of plastic surgery are sometimes under a light for questions. Back in the past, there were some pathopsychological assessments conducted at first before the surgery took place to assure that one really needs plastic surgery, although the reason written in their medical record was vaguely very vague. As the purpose of plastic surgery shifts, I argue that this practice is becoming far less common and many plastic surgery practices are conducted without prior assessments. Although some surgeons in recent era examine the psychological impact of plastic surgery, pre and postoperative, but not without flaws they are. Moreover, a study notes that no improvement on psychological aspects or whatsoever for people who had done plastic surgery before, implying that the demand for plastic surgery may not stop even after they had done the first procedure, and thus suggesting a possibility of addiction.
Plastic Surgery Addiction
While some notable scholars have established the association of plastic surgery addictions and underlying conditions, one study named several causes or–to an extreme degree, predictors–that may play a huge part in plastic-surgery decisions. Personality disorder, a huge, deviated personality that interferes with someone’s well-being. Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD, which causes the patients to be prone to accumulate fear of abandonment or separation insecurity, unstable emotions, anxiousness, depressiveness, unstable and conflicted close relationships, unstable identities, and unstable self-direction inside their conflicting minds. Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BDD, resulting in a dysfunctional body image. BDD is also known for a very distorted image of the term “ugliness”, “fat”, and very similar issues. Those pathological causes are also, often in most cases, intensified by previous trauma, or rather childhood trauma. Those previously-mentioned pathological conditions are often amplified by the existence of endless information-flow on social media through which one consumes and conceptualizes the perfect body and beauty trend and disrupts their own thoughts.
Moreover, those causes are thought to be the mastermind of the endless dissatisfaction, often ending in taking more than one unnecessary procedure to fix their already-perfect body figures. It is reported in one study that people find their post-rhinoplasty face to be displeasing and unable to reach their own expectations and will eventually haunt them more.
In some cases, once they realize plastic surgery will not solve their own problems, often one wakes up in a full regret. Interestingly enough, this does not happen to ordinary people, but also affects celebrities as well. Courteney Cox, for example, once noticed her features to be odd and unusual than the way she looked before she had a procedure done, and immediately regretted it.
“I didn’t realize that, oh shit, I’m actually looking really strange with injections and doing stuff to my face that I would never do now.” — Courteney Cox to The Sunday Times
Holistic Approach of Health
I argue that this addiction may not be sufficient to be handled by doing what the patients want, but it is much deeper than that. I argue that prior psychological assessment needs to be carried out first so that surgeons can identify whether the procedures are really something that is not infatuated by a pathological underlying. This is why the British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons suggests that a psychological assessment is required when deemed necessary. One procedure may be okay, but requesting multiple procedures on the same spot for a minimal scar and flaw should alarm the surgeons, especially when the patients are underage/minors/adolescents. Failure doing so may exhibit a lack of ethical considerations for surgeons.
Once assessed and a concern growing uncontrollably immense, surgeons may refer their patients to psychological care before carrying out a surgery. This is how a holistic approach of health works and moreover more attention needs to be harbored towards this. After a series of psychological interventions are conducted, the psychologist may kick them back to the surgeons or may not. This position is also a huge challenge, considering many surgeons and psychologists often are not in the position to have a power to do that and a misinterpretation of this action may affect their career seriously.
Looking at it now, among clinics that are obviously not in Indonesia, some clinics have adopted this mechanism, but current circumstances in Indonesia leave a huge question mark. After a short and mini research of looking at articles on Google Scholars and other sources, I found barely anything (articles written in bahasa Indonesia/English) that speaks about this issue. Comprehensive regulation should be done to integrate psychological aspects of cosmetic surgery before this issue spreads eventually like a wildfire, as cosmetic surgery is now becoming more prevalent and more accessible, thus the problems are not limited to upper-class only. This regulation also acts as a counter for inaccurate and misleading information on interpreting why the psychologists do not kick someone back to the surgeons.
