The psychological impact of plastic surgery gone wrong

A women from Surrey has won over £6m in damages against her plastic surgeon who carried out what the victim described as ”experimental surgery” on her face in 2003.

Successful businesswoman Penny Johnson suffered serious nerve damage in a facelift operation which led to physical and psychological consequences as well as playing a part in her IT consultancy business going into administration.

The operation, which was carried out at Bupa Methley Park Hospital in Leeds now means Mrs Johnson’s face constantly contracts and causes permanent buzzing around her eye due to nerve damage.

The judge said that Mrs Johnson used to be a confident, happy and outstandingly successful women, and ruled that the negligence in surgery had caused serious physical and psychological consequences, resulting in the development of anxiety, depression and issues within her marriage.

The judge added that whilst the marriage survived, Mrs Johnson felt that she was no longer a wife to her husband and was a different person now.

“They no longer go out together as they used regularly to do, and have become detached from the close knit group of friends whose company they used to enjoy”. The judge said.

Understandably, any medical procedure which has not gone as planned can have distressing results. If you are struggling to come to terms with negative effects of an operation and you are feeling anxious and depressed then talking to a counsellor or psychotherapist about your experiences may help you to move forward. If you would like to discuss this matter or any other with a qualified counsellor or psychotherapist in your local area then please use the search tool located on the homepage of this site.

View the original BBC News article.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Anxiety, Depression. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.