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In The Psychology of Beauty: Creation of a Beautiful Self, Ellen Sinkman draws on her years of clinical experience to highlight the complex nature of beauty and ideals surrounding it. She argues that fantasies about
beauty and wishes to be transformed are often central to treatment, even as they are frequently overlooked, and that analysis of beauty matters, both verbalized and enacted, can further progress in the clinical situation, while failure to understand issues of this sort will often impede it.
Sinkman mines a wide range of subject matter throughout the book, as is evidenced by a synopsis of her many chapters:
“Prehistoric and Literary Eras: Seeking a Beautiful Self,” a discussion of fables, mythology, and collective wisdom of the ages, places beauty in a historical context.
“Ordinary Beauty and Timeless Fantasies” introduces Medusa and Rapunzel, archetypes who draw attention to the centrality of hair as an aspect of beauty throughout time.
“Rebirth, Transformation, or Growth: Narcissistic Hurdles in the Quest to Become Beautiful” compares neurotic-level struggles for beauty with those in individuals who are more narcissistically vulnerable.
“The Misplaced Therapist: In Search of Pygmalion On and Off the Couch” illustrates how Pygmalion-like transformations are sought in beauty salons, and considers how individuals seek to be transformed in words or through action both inside and outside the treatment.
“Reaching Farther for a Pygmalion Experience: Artistic Beauty or Pathological Excursions?” delves into the subjects of body modification and the external body.
“Perverse Sadomasochistic Aspects in the Urge to Become Beautiful: Use and Abuse in Pygmalion Dyads” considers, among other things, how sadomasochism is played out through body modification.