Critical Looks: An Analysis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder

(1945-2010) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute, London, and was a member of the Spare Rib collective from 1972-1976, writing feature articles and reviews, and commissioning and editing work mainly on visual/cultural work. She then trained as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with WPF/FPC, and worked for 30 years in private practice, returning to WPF as a clinical supervisor. She was also a trustee of the Maya Centre in Islington. Her interests, over 40 years, were in the representation of women in art, the nature of creativity, the experience and theorization of maternity and maternal ambivalence, and, in the years before her death, body dysmorphia. Her publications include Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (co-authored with Griselda Pollock), Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence, The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine, and an influential paper, ‘Body hatred’ (British Journal of Psychotherapy). She was Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, in 2009-2010, and was due to present ‘Critical Looks: An Analysis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder’ at a Birkbeck seminar, when she became ill in 2010. She was at the time in the early stages of a book on body dysmorphic disorder and was in the midst of conducting qualitative interviews for it. The paper draws heavily on that work. The paper has been edited and prepared for publication by Ruth Petrie, Joanna Ryan and Ann Scott.