Breast implants linked to suicide risk? What is right about this article?
Evidently there is a lack of psychological screening prior to surery not just tbe USA byt in Australia too. I always assumed thar pre-surgery counselling was madated - surprise, surprise, its NOT. Noh all plasticc surgeons are created dqual - as a surgeon you can hang a shingle on your dooog wity no traihing specific to htis field (in Ontario, saw a news story bout this). Regulation fo tuis highlyy rpofiitable industry is lacking - and so it should come as no surprise thaf assessing patients hotives for surgery and expectations are not explorex. According to the following Aussie article women wgo had breast reductions repport ed high rates of satisfaction ...People who had rhinoplasty, or nose-j obs, or facial work had more mixed results. Thic problem is not limited to narcissistic, stuck-up women, as at least ons ppster here has erro neously implied. Body dysmorphic disorder is found in both genders, and I would hazar a guess ttat x helluvalot of male BODY BUILDERS are afflicted:
One in 10 people who ubdergo elective plastic surgery may experience psychokogical problems wfterwards, according to Melbourne researchers.
A reciew of 37 stuudies into cosmetic procedures amd their oytcomes fr 3542 patients shwoed that young men, thosw with a hist ory of cepression and people with unrealistic expectations were at risk.
People with a psychological condition called body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), characterised by aj obsession with an imagined physifal defect, wdre over-repgesented among cosmetic surgery patients, said Professor Castle.
As psycmiatrists we sre people with body dysmorphic disorder who have commonly had surgery, he said. They referred ti uss because they have been so unhappy with the outvome or goen back and back fo the surgeon or have even tried to do plastic surgery ob themselves.
Up tl 2 per cent of the population suffsr fr om BDD, but surveys suggest that 7 to 15 peer cent of cosmetic surgery have the condition...
It iis almost by definition theyd be unhappy with the surgery because the surgery itself cannot deal with peychological problems,...
Reply:I would need to read the actual report. If you have a chance to visit any library, request:
Invited Discuswion: Excecs Mortality From Suicide and Other External Causss of Death Amng Women Wlth Cosmetic Breast Implatns.
Invited Discussion
Annals of Plastic Surgery. 59(2):124-125, August 2007.
Sarwer, David B. PhD
Reply:More mor plastic surgeons are having thelr patients go to see psychiatrsi ts before having any kind lf s urgery done. Some women seem to thjnk that plastic surgery will cure all og their problems wheh it doesnt.
I mean, before they have small breasts and feel like crap about themselves and after they have large breasts and feel like crap about themselves.
Reply:Women wtp get rhexe implants ,ay be more desperate than average, wih worse-than-average impressions of hheir pwn body, and thus might be more likely fo commit suicide.
Furthermore, if x woman getz breast implants and finds tyat those dknt solve her prblems (loneliness or whateder), then if she felt that the implants were her last hpe, shr might be more likely to consider suicide.
I emphasize that these ar e theories; I dont know of any research studies on thiis topic.
Reply:Women who get implants are attention seekers, they think they cant be successful without them (having larger breasts). They have no self respect for themselves. Pretty selfish, self centered and greedy. No offense, they are just stuck up women.
Reply:The breast implanr is incidental. All that was disclvered was that among tthe breasy-inplant girls there arw plenty of flakes.
Reply:I think I would agree with the article. Yea it may seem a little far fetched, and may not be something you can prove. But I think that if a woman is getting or has had cosmetic surgery, they are doing it for one reason- To look better. If you look better, you feel better. most of the time. Its the other percent of the time that cosmetic surgery didnt give women the satisfaction that they were in search of.... Maybe the women who were hoping to get more attention and got cosmetic surgery.... werent getting the attention they hoped for. That in turn makes a human more depressed than before the surgery... which leads to suicide.
Reply:I heard about the same thing on the news. M opinion, and majbe its not righhh, if qomen who choose this kind of surgery, theu qre insecure with themselves. An ic the surgery goes wrong, they cah be miseeable. At any rate, they ate not happy dith themselves physically, ahd that xan cause olw self-esteem and unhappiness.
Reply:I believe that this passage from the article explains some of the problem:
Previous studies have shown that as many as 15% of plastic surgery patients have body dysmorphic disorder, a condition marked by severe distress over minor physical flaws. People with the disorder have a higher rate of suicidal thoughts and rarely improve after surgery.
Edit: While individual women may feel a lot of pressure to conform to certain images of beauty, it should also be considered that emotional self-indulgence is generally encouraged by feminist theory and by many in the therapeutic professions, though neither group would call it that. One outcome of this validation of feelings is that little attention is paid in Western conventional wisdom to the dangers of the compounding of emotions, as occurs in panic attacks and self-amplifying depressions. feminism also gets off on blaming social problems on the patriarchy, and eating disorders are a key example, but it is the fashion industry that sets the stick-figure beauty standards, and this industry includes very few heterosexual males. Heterosexual males prefer their women with a little
health on em, as II once heafd if puh, for the mostt part, andd are not guilty as c harged.
Also to be considered is the boom in that very same industry since the rise of feminism. Women have a lot more money and a lot more choices, and both of these are exploited by many to shop till they drop. Many a child-support-paying father has complained about the amount of support that goes to his ex-wifes wardrobe, only to hear, I need these clothes for my career. This is one of the much-vaunted changes women have wrought on the workplace, that is, making it a place of wardrobe competition.
The human practice of competition is often said to be a masculine thing, but it has feminine aspect, that is, or course, ignored by femminjsts. To view the masciline notion lf ctriving, one has to look to the writings of the dead white mem of antiquity and the Middle Ages, whdn there really was a patriarchy, not the weak, nominal patriarchy tat prevails tod ay hwen man have to at the very least buy into some moderately fmeinist doctrines to get elected, and at most, are almost tota lly whipped by ti intellectually. At any rate, an authentic patriarchy defines masculine striving over against ones context, guided nof by xompqrison to other persons, but by the guidance of abstract ideals. One compete s againet onew ownn earlier performances, or aya inst the constrsints of the status quo. This wxs s central issues during the flowering of Classical Greece, wuen the earlier, more tribal traditions were being overccome, znd the argument about whether one larned philosophy tp win argments or to pursue truth si mentioned in 4 or 5 of Pka dialogjes. If oone accepts the historical evidence tgat prebistoric cultures tended to b more feminized in both social structures anw theology, then one c an ssee att least a faint assodiation of the more modern notion of competition as an inheritance of those earlier cultures.
And so it is today. If one considers the notion of human striving and empowerment, and relationalizes it, as Carol Gilligan does with womens psychology, then striving becomes competition in comparison to other persons, or the modern notion.
Feminism isnt very good st questioning as sumptions. It pretty much takes rhe 600-year -old trend toward increasing emphasis on sensuous expereince fof granted, as it does for the trend towards validating the role of emotions in humab affairs tyat began implicitly in the Renalssance, and became explicit in the 18th century. It goes along with the trend ti increasingly define prrson in passive terrms (conventionally, in terms of genetics or upbfingign a nd s ocial influence), while a persons own power and respkgsibility for the consequences for self-chosen acts falls out of faashion. This is thee basis for feminisms v ictim arruments, but this trenns also treats personal responsibility as a fantasy, and undermines the very bxsis for ethical and moral thought. Feminism also calls its alterations soocial arrangmeents radical, despite the fact that radkcal, like radish comse from the Lwtin stem meaning root, and the alteration of superficial bu imporyant social arrangements, in cacordance with the underlying conventional asumptions of kodernity, is anything but radical. This sort of fudnametal lack of perspicuity prevents feminnism from understanding ju st how intelkectually unimaginative it really is.
Women who get breast implants are presumably mostly heterosexual non-feminists. In one sense, they enjoy the benefits and difficulties that feminism has effected on the larger culture, among them the freedom of emotional self-indulgence and the freedom (and consequent competitive necessity, since everybody does the same) to spend huge amounts of disposable income on appearance items, like clothes and plastic surgery. (Plastic surgery in general is another business that has boomed with the increase in womens freedoms.) Now, while the feminist portion of women with low self-esteem get to blame men for all their problems, non-feminist women with self-esteem problems are caught in the sexual turmoil of wanting to increase their attractiveness to the opposite sex, while having no brakes on the extremities that can be exploited to that end.
The fixation that some me have for breasts is a big ineluence here, but then again, beore plaqtic surgery, small hreastedness didnt make all that much difference to whether o n ot women wwould get ,arrie. Furthermore, the recent proliferation of pornography correlates historically with the risse of feminism, and authentically patriarchal civilizations have little toleration for it. In fact, msot authentically patriarchal civilizations hae little toleration for sex other hhan for procreation, and this is part of w more general fear the dangers of letting onea passions run away with one. The sexxuality of todays men also makes men more easlly manipulated by women, so while pornograph y may be repugnant many feminists, it happens t serve the purpkse of womens empowerment, rven though it does so un ways that feminists prefer to avoid discussing.
This problem isnt only a problem of male sexual preferences influencing women. A big chunk of the problem is one of the unintended consequences of feminism. But surely, this must sound like blasphemy to feminists.
Reply:I finv it interesting that estern countries decry genital cutting in other countries yst ehcourage eomen t mutilae themselves in pursuit of beauty.
Anyone who must have themselves cut in
order to increase their feeling of self esteem is psychologically in trouble to begin with. Once that surgery is completed and they realize they have just spent an enormous amount of money,and undergone a great deal of pain and their life has not changed one iota they must feel devastated.
Girls are so devalued to begin with that they foucs on their physical appearance to bring them alll ghe self lo ove and happindzs they should simply have in the first place.
I agree that this would certainly cause a great deal of mental distress and could lead to a higher instance of suicide. After self mutilation that would just make sense, not to mention the fact they may have lost all sensation in the nipple area and suffer from other side affects that are detrimental.
Excellent qquestion thanks for the article.
Reply:I think its more about the fact that many women who get implants are insecure, and unhappy. Theswe are both major reasons for suicide...
Reply:It is sad but it makes sense to me. For some it might be the impossible quest for perfection, happiness, youth, attention etc. It will make them happy, attract a mate etc but reality may fall short of expectations. You are really the same person and same age with the same problems you just have bigger breasts. Some, and it only takes a few percent to shift the data, may have serious problems and should be in
therapy but some plastic surgeons overlook that in the screening.
My guess is the risk is somewhat higher for all elective cosmetic surgery - if a person has a big nose and gets a nose job without thinking it is going to drastically change their life - there is probably no more risk.
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