Volunteers needed for my research: A Fragmented Self: Exploring Body Dysmorphic Disorder Through A Person-Centred Experiential Lens

Hello, my name is Alice. I am a postgraduate student completing my dissertation research as part of my MA in Counselling and Psychotherapy at Liverpool John Moore’s University. My research is being supervised by Dr Peter Blundell.

The research aims to gain a greater understanding of the experiences of individuals with a diagnosis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), to give a voice to participants. The research seeks to explore participants experiences, offering insights into their lived experiences, which will help raise awareness and provide a greater understanding of the diagnosis.

Ethical approval has been granted for the study by The Faculty of Psychology Research Ethics and Governance committee Liverpool John Moore’s University. This includes approval to recruit participants online through social media and various forums. The reference number for my ethical approval is PsyREC-015-2425-RR.

I am hoping to recruit 3-5 individuals with a diagnosis of BDD. All participants will need to have previously engaged in therapeutic interventions but not be actively engaging in therapeutic or psychological interventions, and are willing and able to participate. Participation is voluntary and much appreciated.

I will be conducting semi-structured interviews over MS Teams and will last up to 1 hour. The interviews can be arranged at a time to suit the participant, all they need to do is email me and I can send the participant information sheet with more information about the research. Alongside the interview, there is a creative element in terms of representing your experiences through artistic mediums.

Inclusion criteria to take part:

• You are aged 18 or above.
• Participants need to be resident to the United Kingdom (UK).
• You have engaged with therapeutic interventions in the past.
• You are not currently engaging with therapeutic or psychological interventions so as not to interrupt that process and to ensure participants wellbeing.

You can also help by sharing my study with anyone you think would be interested or may want to participate.

Please see poster here.

Feel free to email me to ask about my research: a.miller@2023.LJMU.ac.uk. Thank you for reading!