Body integrity dysphoria

Body integrity dysphoria, also called body integrity identity disorder, is a psychiatric condition in which a person experiences a persistent mismatch between their mental body image and their actual physical body, leading to a desire for a sensory or physical disability that is not present. Most commonly this takes the form of a wish for amputation of a specific limb, usually the left leg, though some affected individuals instead desire paralysis, blindness, or deafness. The desire typically emerges between the ages of eight and twelve and persists throughout life, often producing significant distress and, in some cases, attempts at self-injury to bring the body closer to the desired state. The cause remains unclear; neuroimaging research has found reduced gray matter in the right superior parietal lobule, a brain region involved in body perception, among people who desire removal of the left leg. No established medical or surgical treatment exists. The condition was first formally described in 1977 by psychologists Gregg Furth and John Money, and was given formal diagnostic recognition in the ICD-11 in 2018, coded 6C21, after decades in which it was discussed under the earlier term apotemnophilia.