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This uniquely integrative handbook provides a comprehensive account of current theory, research, and clinical practice in the area of body image and body image disorders. The volume's 57 brief chapters have been contributed by internationally recognized experts from diverse mental health, medical, and allied health care disciplines. Conceptual approaches for understanding body image are reviewed, lifespan developmental factors examined, and the influences of gender, physical characteristics, family factors, sexual orientation, and sociocultural variables evaluated. Cutting-edge information is presented on understanding and treating such problems as eating disorders, body dysmorphic disorder, and negative body image experiences associated with disease or other physical conditions. Specific assessment techniques are reviewed and evaluated, and the evidence is examined for a wide range of clinical management approaches, including contemporary psychosocial treatments, weight loss and fitness regimens, psychopharmacology, and surgical interventions.

"The subjective representation and experience of the physical body is an essential ingredient of our personality. While most often an adaptive and silent aspect of normal functioning, the 'body image' may become deeply embroiled in conflict and pathology--most notably in anorexia and bulimia--but in many other common psycho-medical conditions as well. Drs. Cash and Pruzinsky have brought to bear years of specialized experience."--Leo Goldberger, PhD, Department of Psychology, New York University

"It is a pleasure to find a book that so ably fulfills its purpose with authority and thoroughness, and without pedantry or tedium. This well-edited volume will be helpful--even indispensable--to students and professionals concerned with body image and its alterations: real or imagined, congenital, developmental, or acquired. Pediatricians, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, plastic surgeons, dermatologists, endocrinologists, gynecologists, urologists, oncologists, internists, and others will find the range of the chapters extensive and their readability admirable."--Robert M. Goldwyn, MD, Clinical Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Editor, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery

"Everyone has heard that body image dissatisfaction is common enough in teenage girls to be considered a normative discontent. Few, however, know exactly what body image is, how it changes over the life cycle, or how best to measure it. Moreover, few realize that body image is as relevant to such fields as dentistry, dermatology, and oncology as it is to psychology and psychiatry. Cash and Pruzinsky have assembled the world's experts to produce this definitive volume. It will be read eagerly by undergraduate and graduate students, but particularly by practitioners who seek to alleviate the distress associated with negative body image in its many manifestations. This is a 'must read.'"--Thomas A. Wadden, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

"This remarkable handbook is encyclopedic in scope. It manages to cover in one volume all aspects of body image--from developmental and cultural aspects to psychological, pharmacological, and surgical interventions. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in body image and its disorders."--Christopher G. Fairburn, FRCPsych, FMedSci, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK

Thomas F. Cash, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. He has published over 150 scientific articles and chapters on the psychology of physical appearance. The developer of an empirically supported program to help people have a more positive body image, Dr. Cash has served on the editorial boards of several professional journals and is currently founding a new international journal of body image scholarship. His website is located at www.body-images.com.

Thomas Pruzinsky, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Quinnipiac University and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Plastic Surgery at the New York University School of Medicine. His research and clinical interests focus on the psychological aspects of plastic and reconstructive surgery, and he has published numerous articles and chapters on these topics. Dr. Pruzinsky has served as a manuscript reviewer for [i]Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery[/i], [i]Health Psychology[/i], and the [i]Cleft Palate/n-/Craniofacial Journal[/i].