Being psychologically prepared for plastic surgery is critical

Plastic surgery has always been associated with psychology. It began as a reparative surgery, with reports of nasal reconstruction cases dating from the middle ages. It was introduced in Brazil by Dr. Antonio Prudente in the late 1930s.

The search for repair of congenital or acquired deformities aimed at restoring the affected function, as well as minimizing the important psychological consequences in the personal, affective and professional field.

With the improvement of surgical and anesthetic techniques, plastic surgery also began to aim at aesthetic improvement, justified by the growing search for self-esteem.

Today, due to the great safety and standardization of such techniques, plastic surgery has become popular, from being a taboo to becoming another item in the aesthetic arsenal.

However, the massification of the media and the imposition of the prevailing beauty standard has also brought psychological distortions.

There are patients who are eternally dissatisfied with themselves and who project plastic surgery to solve their problems. Of course they will always be dissatisfied with the results, no matter how good, because the surgery will not solve personal, family and professional problems.

There are others that feature self-image distortions, always seeking correction of non-existent defects. Of course they will never be satisfied with the surgery either, as the focus will change as soon as it is finished and they will find a new defect.

Another type of psychological distortion found in clinics is exemplified by patients who want to change their faces to look like celebrities. If such changes are attempted, there will be frustration at not being equal to your idol and you may have problems with non-recognition of self-image.

An important feature of the aesthetic plastic surgerywhich, in my view, is a great advantage over other fields of medicine, is that there is no need or urgency to do so. This allows it to be performed only at the optimum time when the patient is physically and psychologically ready.

The surgeon's role is to look in the technical arsenal for ways to achieve improvements aimed at rejuvenating and correcting aesthetic distortions, but without changing the ethnic and physiognomic characteristics, always aiming at the naturalness of the results.

The conversation with the patient should be clear, direct and frank, leaving no doubt as to the possible outcomes and technical limitations. In the case of encountering emotionally unstable patients, should refer for psychological follow-up and postpone surgery.

Thus, plastic surgery is a safe and high satisfaction procedure between patients and doctors. However, the Expert knows that as important as knowing who, how and when to operate is knowing who does NOT, otherwise they will both be dissatisfied.

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