For people with body image issues, simply taking time to properly look at your body can be an emotional experience.
In the second and final episode of SBS series How 'Mad' Are You? participants are confronted with just that. By undertaking a fixation test, which can determine whether someone has a history of anorexia nervosa, participants have their photo taken while wearing form-fitting clothes and are then recorded looking at those images.
According to clinical psychiatrist Professor Jayashari Kulkarni, poor body image is a pervasive phenomenon ("in the end it's self confidence, self worth and self esteem"), and she predicted that many participants would have trouble with the test.
"I'm surprised no one said, 'I'm not doing this'," she admitted.
For some of the 10 participants, the whole concept was challenging before it even began. "I don't like having my photo taken at the best of times, so I'm a bit vulnerable actually," one participant, Sharon said. "This is out of my comfort zone. Not being able to hide the physical side, which I guess leaves the emotional side more open."
Another participant Katherine, said, "it was really confronting, staring at myself like that. I found it really hard to watch. I'm not really comfortable with the way I look," while Cameron said "I saw all the things I wasn't."
The test came about from a 2015 study between Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Melbourne, and St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne and is said to have a 95 per cent accuracy.
As the participants looked at the photos of themselves and others, technology records where the eye looks and for how long. Scientists then analyse the results - those with a steady gaze are typical of a healthy population, and those with "square wave jerks", where the eyes jerk between objects, suggest the participant is likely to have a history of anorexia.
What was most surprising for the panel of experts, however, was that the three who seemed to have the most emotional response through their clinical observations did not show the same indicators with the recorded data.
The one participant, Mitch, who was revealed to have had a history of anorexia presented to the panel of experts as confident and healthy in their clinical observations, but the results of the 'square jerk test' indicated otherwise.
With results that counter the experts' observations, the test challenges assumptions around mental illness.
"It's thrown me a bit,' Dr Kulkarni said.
When asked how he was able to recover from his anorexia, Mitch said, "For me it was recognising that it was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to me. And rather that trying to completely put it behind me and just ignore it, to form meaning from it."
He credits cognitive behaviour therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, mindfulness and yoga to his recovery. "Just being able to connect my body with my mind and not have them against each other."
The new SBS series 'How 'Mad' Are You?' takes a unique look at mental health. Catch up on the series on SBS On Demand.
