Previous research has indicated an increasing trend toward elective cosmetic surgery to achieve a perceived ideal body image and meet psychological and social needs. However, there remains a gap in the literature regarding the number of procedures performed on a single patient, and the potential that patients may suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the number of cosmetic surgeries undergone, level of body dissatisfaction, level of dysmorphic concern, and preoccupation with appearance. Participants included 75 females and 55 males, ranging in age from 18 to 64 years. The majority of participants identified as Caucasian and resided in the United States. Most participants reported having two or three cosmetic surgeries. A multiple regression analysis was run to predict whether dysmorphic concern, body image concern, and/or BDD symptomology predict the number of cosmetic procedures undergone. The first significant finding was that body dissatisfaction, level of dysmorphic concern, and likelihood of BDD predict the number of cosmetic surgeries an individual chooses to undergo. The second significant finding was that the level of body image satisfaction-dissatisfaction as measured by the Body Image Ideal Questionnaire does predict the number of cosmetic procedures undergone. The results from this study provide support for the prerequisite of a psychological screening for cosmetic surgery and thus may contribute to positive social change for the cosmetic surgery community and its patients. Successful implementation of such a screening tool would contribute to social change, particularly for those candidates with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health concerns.

Previous research on cosmetic surgery and teenage girls is limited and fails to provide information regarding how teenage girls construct these procedures. A social constructionist approach informed by a discursive psychology methodology was used to study how teenage girls and message board respondents construct cosmetic surgery through the language they use and the social actions performed through their talk. I analyzed questions posted by teenage girls between the ages of 13 to 19 on online message boards, as well as responses to these questions posted by other message board users. Social actions identified in the teenage girls talk included: advice and information seeking, approval seeking, and justification of cosmetic surgery. Social actions identified in the respondents talk included: provision of advice and information, warning, approval, disapproval, criticism and judgement, reassurance, empathy, encouragement, and support. In general, teenage girls constructed cosmetic surgery as a way for them to feel better about themselves, as a way for them to feel better about the body part they were seeking surgery for, and as a way for them to fit in and be accepted by others. The results of this study are discussed in relation to the existing research on teenage girls and cosmetic surgery, Daviss (1995) feminist perspective on cosmetic surgery, Fredrickson and Robertss (1997) objectification theory, and embodiment. Implications for teenage girls, parents of teenage girls, physicians, and psychologists are also discussed, and recommendations for future research are suggested.

Previous research on cosmetic surgery and teenage girls is limited and fails to provide information regarding how teenage girls construct these procedures. A social constructionist approach informed by a discursive psychology methodology was used to study how teenage girls and message board respondents construct cosmetic surgery through the language they use and the social actions performed through their talk. I analyzed questions posted by teenage girls between the ages of 13 to 19 on online message boards, as well as responses to these questions posted by other message board users. Social actions identified in the teenage girls talk included: advice and information seeking, approval seeking, and justification of cosmetic surgery. Social actions identified in the respondents talk included: provision of advice and information, warning, approval, disapproval, criticism and judgement, reassurance, empathy, encouragement, and support. In general, teenage girls constructed cosmetic surgery as a way for them to feel better about themselves, as a way for them to feel better about the body part they were seeking surgery for, and as a way for them to fit in and be accepted by others. The results of this study are discussed in relation to the existing research on teenage girls and cosmetic surgery, Daviss (1995) feminist perspective on cosmetic surgery, Fredrickson and Robertss (1997) objectification theory, and embodiment. Implications for teenage girls, parents of teenage girls, physicians, and psychologists are also discussed, and recommendations for future research are suggested.

Few bodies consistently portray natural or unaltered forms. Instead, humans inhabit bodies imbued with sociocultural meanings about what is attractive, appropriate, functional, and presentable. As such, embodiment is always gendered. The social, extra-corporeal body is a central locus for expressing gender. Surgical body modifications represent inherently gendered technologies of the body. But psychomedical institutions subject people who seek gender-crossing surgeries to increased surveillance, managing and regulating cross-gender embodiment as disorderly. Using mixed research methods, this research systematically compared transgender and cisgender (non-transgender) people’s experiences before, during, and after surgical body modification. I conducted a content analysis of 445 threads on a message board for an online cisgender surgery community, an analysis of 15 international protocols for transgender-specific surgeries, and 40 in-depth interviews with cisgender and transgender people who had surgery. The content analysis of the online community revealed similar themes among cisgender and transgender surgery users. However, detailed protocols existed only for transgender consumers of surgery. Interview findings showed that transgender and cisgender people reported similar presurgical feelings toward their bodies, similar cosmetic and psychological motivations for surgery, and similar benefits of surgery. For both cisgender and transgender people, surgery enhanced the inner self through improving the outer gendered body. Despite these similar embodied experiences, having a cisgender gender status determined respondents’ abilities to pursue surgery autonomously and with institutional support. Ultimately, this research highlights inequalities that result from gender status and manifest in psychomedical institutions by identifying the psychosocial impacts of provider/consumer or doctor/patient interactions, relating gendered embodiment to regulatory systems of authority, and illuminating policy implications for clinical practice and legal classifications of sex and gender.

While there is a long history of rhetorical studies that focus on oral and written discourses, the relatively recent trend of studying rhetorical images, materiality, and rhetorical bodies presents a shift toward an expanded perspective on what constitutes texts and what can be considered rhetorical. The study of bodies as rhetorical texts prompts the questions of how language is material and visual in nature. In my dissertation I examine the relationship between rhetoric and the body through Judith Butler's theories of materiality and performativity. Using Butler's theories of performance as a lens, I analyze the rhetoric of plastic and cosmetic surgery and demonstrate the role of performance in the perpetuation of and response to rhetoric of the body. Cosmetic and plastic surgery are performatives in that they not only confer a binding power on the action performed by altering the body through surgical and non-surgical means, but also initiate various citational practices within the field of medicine and in popular culture (through various mediums such as television, magazines, billboards, and websites). These procedures result in images and claims that authorize particular social expectations of beauty, youth, and sexuality.I examine a range of mass media texts related to cosmetic surgery (television shows, magazines, news clips, websites, and films) that portray different normative and deviant performativity of the body. In my research, I include interviews from volunteers in Los Angeles; my analysis involves local individuals' relationships to plastic and cosmetic surgery and their various body performatives in terms of normativity and agency. By comparing global and local perspectives, I argue that media sensationalizes the agent/victim binary in order to sell plastic and cosmetic surgeries, as well as related texts. The local stories serve to counter assumptions about the role of power in plastic surgery, revealing a far more complicated relationship between clients, rhetoric, and the reasons behind their surgeries; the agent/victim binary that is emphasized in mass media fails to capture lived experience and creates a detrimental rhetoric of empowerment.

In this thesis I investigate what ‘authenticity’ means in a contemporary popular context and how it is used in the staging of bodies. Furthermore, I analyse works of dance and fashion from the past fifteen years with a focus on their strategies of challenging the notion of ‘bodily authenticity’.   When ‘an authentic body’ is sought by participants or demanded by judges and ‘experts’ on popular makeover and casting TV shows such as The Swan (Fox 2004) or Germany’s Next Topmodel (Pro 7 2006-present) this refers to the physical visualisation of what is perceived/presented as the participants ‘inner self’. I scrutinise the staging techniques and the codes of appearance that bodies have to comply with in order to be deemed ‘authentic’ on the shows. To define them and place them in the history of the idea of ‘bodily authenticity’, I complement my study with an outline of how ‘authenticity’ was understood in the Enlightenment and what techniques were used to stage the body when the concept gained currency, for instance in the writings of Rousseau. My analysis makes clear that 'bodily authenticity' on the two TV shows is achieved by strictly following gender-normative codes of beauty and by a depiction of 'working hard'. But various techniques also mask the hard work, for example by showing a participant ‘having fun’ performing it.   Contemporary works of dance and fashion challenge the problematic implications in the notion of ‘bodily authenticity’. I analyse three strategies of undermining the ‘authentic’ ideal in a total of seven pieces. These strategies are hyperbole which exaggerates the beauty code implicit in ‘authentic appearance’; multiplicity which undermines ‘authenticity’s’ essentialism and estrangement which denies the notion of individual authorship. In conclusion, I place the staging strategies used in my examples in a wider cultural context and highlight potential problems inherent in their critiques. / <p>Thesis is done in ’co-tutelle’ with Freie Universität Berlin. </p>

The thesis determined predominant themes that surround the topic of cosmetic surgery. On the basis of the findings a thematic counselling framework for cosmetic surgery clinical practice is proposed. A mixed methods design was chosen for this study. A thematic analysis was used to ascertain themes. A quasi-numerative approach was also utilised to establish the relative incidence of themes. Sources of data were media, internet message boards and interviews with men and women about cosmetic surgery. Two overarching themes emerged within the coding process. These were factors that might persuade someone to have and factors that might dissuade someone from having cosmetic surgery. A number of persuading and dissuading sub-themes were identified. Quantitative results demonstrated that within the two overarching themes 58% of the talk was persuasive of, whilst 42% was dissuasive of having cosmetic surgery. Some of the sub-themes found in the thesis were considered to compete with one another. This is evidence that patients have to negotiate conflicting information about cosmetic surgery. The findings of the dissertation are interpreted within a theoretical context. Through applying theories of decision-making and cognitive dissonance, suggestions are made about how health professionals might proceed clinically in counselling with cosmetic surgery patients or those considering having a procedure. The thematic counselling framework proposed within this thesis is intended to assist patients and clinicians with the numerous messages from our social community (societal messages) that shape their relationship to cosmetic surgery. To the author’s knowledge, it is the first clinical framework to do so. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Adelaide, School of Medicine, 2009

A partir de uma abordagem do fenômeno das cirurgias plásticas enquanto algo que se conforma na prática, esta dissertação versa sobre os limites entre o reparador e o estético relativos a esses procedimentos. Tendo como espinha dorsal a formação das(os) médicas(os) e a constituição dessa especialidade da medicina, tais fronteiras serão abordadas a partir do entendimento de que não apenas auxiliam na conformação das cirurgias plásticas, mas são também constituídas em relação a essas últimas. Através da participação em eventos promovidos por Ligas de Cirurgia Plástica e entrevistas realizadas com graduandas, residentes, cirurgiãs e cirurgiões plásticos, este trabalho tem como objetivo construir uma narrativa, entre tantas outras possíveis, acerca dos modos como os limites entre o estético e o reparador têm se instituído discursivo-materialmente. Antes, contudo, parte-se de uma abordagem histórica a fim de uma compreensão mais situada a respeito de como essa especialidade tem se conformado ao longo do tempo. Por meio de diferentes investimentos esta dissertação trata, em síntese, sobre como esses procedimentos assumem diferentes realidades. Assim, contingências históricas, sociais, econômicas, políticas e materiais, entre inúmeras outras, são compreendidas de maneira indissociável como atuantes na conformação das cirurgias plásticas e dos limites concernentes a elas. Por fim, sugere-se que um entendimento dessas realidades enquanto múltiplas nos auxilia na construção de uma apreensão do conhecimento médico como algo que não está dado, mas como práticas histórico-materialmente situadas. Ainda, a partir da discussão central proposta por este trabalho são estabelecidos pontos de confluência entre as cirurgias plásticas e as fronteiras relativas ao corpo e aos binômios natureza/cultura, saúde/doença, forma/função, entre outros. / This dissertation addresses the limits between the cosmetic and the reconstructive surgeries from an approach of the plastic surgery phenomenon as something that conforms in practice. Having as a backbone the formation of the doctors and the constitution of this specialty of medicine, such boundaries will be approached from the understanding that they not only aid in the conformation of plastic surgeries but also are constituted of this last one. Through the participation in events promoted by Plastic Surgery Leagues and interviews with undergraduates, residents and plastic surgeons, this study aims to construct a narrative, among many others possible, about the ways in which the boundaries between the cosmetic and the reconstructive surgeries have been instituted discursive-materially. First, however, it starts with a historical approach in order to understand more about how this specialty has conformed over time. Through different investments, this dissertation deals, in short, with about how these procedures take on different realities. Thus, historical, social, economic, political, and material contingencies, among countless others, are understood as acting in the conformation of plastic surgeries and the limits concerning them. Finally, it suggests that an understanding of these realities as multiple helps us in constructing an apprehension of the medical knowledge as something that is not given but as historical-materially situated practices. Still, from the proposed discussion by this study, points of convergence between plastic surgeries and boundaries related to the body and to the binomials nature/culture, health/illness, form/function, among others, are established.

A partir de uma abordagem do fenômeno das cirurgias plásticas enquanto algo que se conforma na prática, esta dissertação versa sobre os limites entre o reparador e o estético relativos a esses procedimentos. Tendo como espinha dorsal a formação das(os) médicas(os) e a constituição dessa especialidade da medicina, tais fronteiras serão abordadas a partir do entendimento de que não apenas auxiliam na conformação das cirurgias plásticas, mas são também constituídas em relação a essas últimas. Através da participação em eventos promovidos por Ligas de Cirurgia Plástica e entrevistas realizadas com graduandas, residentes, cirurgiãs e cirurgiões plásticos, este trabalho tem como objetivo construir uma narrativa, entre tantas outras possíveis, acerca dos modos como os limites entre o estético e o reparador têm se instituído discursivo-materialmente. Antes, contudo, parte-se de uma abordagem histórica a fim de uma compreensão mais situada a respeito de como essa especialidade tem se conformado ao longo do tempo. Por meio de diferentes investimentos esta dissertação trata, em síntese, sobre como esses procedimentos assumem diferentes realidades. Assim, contingências históricas, sociais, econômicas, políticas e materiais, entre inúmeras outras, são compreendidas de maneira indissociável como atuantes na conformação das cirurgias plásticas e dos limites concernentes a elas. Por fim, sugere-se que um entendimento dessas realidades enquanto múltiplas nos auxilia na construção de uma apreensão do conhecimento médico como algo que não está dado, mas como práticas histórico-materialmente situadas. Ainda, a partir da discussão central proposta por este trabalho são estabelecidos pontos de confluência entre as cirurgias plásticas e as fronteiras relativas ao corpo e aos binômios natureza/cultura, saúde/doença, forma/função, entre outros. / This dissertation addresses the limits between the cosmetic and the reconstructive surgeries from an approach of the plastic surgery phenomenon as something that conforms in practice. Having as a backbone the formation of the doctors and the constitution of this specialty of medicine, such boundaries will be approached from the understanding that they not only aid in the conformation of plastic surgeries but also are constituted of this last one. Through the participation in events promoted by Plastic Surgery Leagues and interviews with undergraduates, residents and plastic surgeons, this study aims to construct a narrative, among many others possible, about the ways in which the boundaries between the cosmetic and the reconstructive surgeries have been instituted discursive-materially. First, however, it starts with a historical approach in order to understand more about how this specialty has conformed over time. Through different investments, this dissertation deals, in short, with about how these procedures take on different realities. Thus, historical, social, economic, political, and material contingencies, among countless others, are understood as acting in the conformation of plastic surgeries and the limits concerning them. Finally, it suggests that an understanding of these realities as multiple helps us in constructing an apprehension of the medical knowledge as something that is not given but as historical-materially situated practices. Still, from the proposed discussion by this study, points of convergence between plastic surgeries and boundaries related to the body and to the binomials nature/culture, health/illness, form/function, among others, are established.

The object of the study is to examine the consumption of cosmetic tourism from the consumer's and the producer’s viewpoint and to examine what factors help individuals choose to travel overseas to consume cosmetic surgeries. The method used in the study was a qualitative examination, where we interviewed seven individuals. Five of the individuals have gone through the process of surgery overseas, one is a Swedish surgeon that’s working on Akademikliniken and lastly we interviewed one person who runs a company in Sweden that arranges trips overseas with the purpose of going through a surgery. The collected data was analyzed with support of the consumer society and Gidden's theory about modernity and self-identity. The final discussion shows that cosmetic tourism is a growing phenomenon and the extent of it is growing in today's society and that the main factors that have shown to affect the choice is trust and competence within the clinic and the surgeon, and women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka konsumtionen av kosmetisk turism utifrån ett konsument- och producentperspektiv samt att se vilka faktorer det är som styr individen utomlands för att konsumera kosmetiska ingrepp. Studien genomfördes med en kvalitativ undersökning, varav vi intervjua sju personer. Fem av dem har utfört kosmetiska ingrepp utomlands, en av dem är en svensk kirurg som arbetar på Akademikliniken och slutligen intervjuade vi en kvinna som driver ett bolag i Sverige som arrangerar resor utomlands med syftet att genomgå kosmetiska ingrepp. Det insamlade materialet analyserades med bland annat stöd av utgångspunkten från konsumtionssamhället och Giddens teori om modernitet och självidentitet. Den slutliga diskussionen visar att kosmetisk turism är ett växande fenomen och vad fenomenet innebär samt att de utmärkande faktorerna som visat sig påverka valet av resan är tilliten, kompetensen hos kliniken och kvinnors missnöje med kroppen.