What Is Mirror Exposure Therapy About?

Mirror exposure therapy is especially useful in preventing eating disorders. It helps people accept their bodies and develop a healthier emotional focus.

Mirror exposure therapy is a psychological technique for body and soul. It helps to treat negative body image, reduce anxiety and loosen the knots that intensify depression. In short, it is a highly effective strategy to help you love and reconcile with the person in front of the mirror – the reflection that may scare you.

Many women and men despise what they see in the mirror. It makes them feel uncomfortable, tense and even scared. Some people see obesity in places where there is none. Others see wrinkles, ugliness, scars… a body full of defects. It is in a way an unconscious process where the mirror becomes a symbol of torture  and the main defining factors are the individual’s self-esteem and identity.

These distortions reveal that mirror exposure therapy can be very helpful. Especially in cases where the dissatisfaction with the body is so great that the patient ends up hating himself. In addition, it is important to keep in mind that this therapy works best when the patient is also working on managing their emotions and negative thoughts. These two processes definitely go hand in hand. Let’s develop this a little more.

• Mirror exposure therapy is very effective. However, the experts do not yet understand the mechanisms by which the patient will eventually accept his own body image. Because no two cases are alike, this therapeutic tool varies its techniques according to each patient’s needs.

In 2016, Maastricht University studied the mechanisms that allow bulimics or patients with low physical acceptance to get better in just a little more than a month. An important observation was that working through the patient’s cognitive distortions and emotions  played a major role in their recovery.

The Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry also  published an interesting study conducted at the University of Granada. The researchers scientifically showed how female bulimic patients showed lower cortisol levels after the use of mirror exposure therapy.

Two very basic techniques are commonly used during this therapy:

• Guided presentation:  In this case, the trained psychologist encourages and guides the patient to describe his body while looking in the mirror. They must do this in a neutral and objective way as if they were describing a painting.

• Pure display: The  patient expresses freely and authentically everything they feel and experience when they see their body. Of course, this technique is quite tough because patients demonstrably do not like what they see. In the vast majority of cases, they describe themselves as ugly, horrible and even deformed. In any case, this is necessary for the therapeutic process.

Griffen, TC, Naumann, E. and Hildebrandt (2018) also pointed out that these two techniques are not always effective on every single patient. In cases where none of them work, mirror exposure therapy uses a third strategy that makes everything much easier:

• Mirror exposure with a positive attitude:  This tool helps to reduce the patient’s pain (which can be serious in almost every case). The therapist guides the patient to point out areas of their body that they like the most. The main rule they must follow is that they must use positive language and cannot say negative things about their appearance. In cases where the person does not see anything attractive with their body, the therapist will be there to help and encourage them with phrases such as “I think you are cute”, “Your skin is very smooth” or “Your hands are also very attractive .

Many people wonder how it is possible for patients to show improvement after only six sessions. Patients are obviously less stressed, their level of self-esteem increases significantly and they generally begin to appreciate their body much more. In fact, sooner or later they stop experiencing the body dysmorphy that haunted them. If a patient really shows improvement with mirror exposure therapy, it is because of these reasons:

The four pillars of mirror exposure therapy

Modification of self-interpretation:  A person with dysmorphy or eating disorder associates every negative situation in their daily life with their body image. If they make a mistake, if someone rejects them or someone betrays them, they immediately attribute it to their physique. This therapy aims to help erase these interpretations.

Partial attention:  If the patient has a straight nose, thick ankles, broad shoulders, small or no breasts, a lot of freckles, etc. then he will not focus on any other physical trait than those which the person in question considers to be deficiencies. With this clinical approach, this bias loses its strength.

Reducing fear and anxiety: With mirror exposure therapy, it is possible to reduce the individual’s negative emotions by encouraging a positive relationship with the problematic stimulus: his or her physique.

Cognitive kneading:  This strategy allows the patient to stop kneading their self-image through negative rejection / provocative filters. This cornerstone allows the individual to regain respect and appreciation for themselves.

Undoubtedly, this technology can put an end to many people’s physical distortions. It can be a particularly good tool for those who reject the image the mirror reflects without having developed any eating disorder yet.