Professor shines light on shadowy condition

Sandra Fallman avoided mirrors. Walking down sidewalks during dates, she would avoid bright storefront lights, walking near the curb to stay in the shadows. She put 25-watt bulbs in her apartment lights, not to set the mood, but to provide cover. Fallman suffers from a little-known mental condition called body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Sufferers are ashamed of certain aspects of their physical appearance because of exaggerated or imagined defects. But, unlike most of us who have flaws that we live with, these blemishes take over sufferers' lives, force them indoors, and cause them to shun contact with others.

"We don't just think we're ugly. We think we're grotesque and disfigured," said Fallman, a Marblehead resident who has been treated at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Body Dysmorphic Disorder Clinic.

The clinic, one of just a few in the United States, is run by Sabine Wilhelm, an associate professor of psychology in Harvard Medical School's Psychiatry Department and the clinic's founder and director.

The clinic provides drug therapy and a combination of cognitive and behavioral therapy that helps sufferers slowly remake their self-image and reform the behavior that goes with it.