Body Integrity Identity Disorder.

Newsweek recently ran an article on BIID (http://www.newsweek.com/id/138932/page/1) Have you heard of this?

It seems that some people have a disorder that causes them to identify a body part as NOT belonging to their own body. They go to great lenghts to remove the body part - amputating it, shooting it off, traveling to underground doctors to have it removed, all kinds of extremes.

Research is finding that people with BIID do have a different structure to their brains. People suffering from BIID want to have it recognized as a genuine mental disorder so that they can safely and legally have the limb removed; they say nothing else, not therapy, not medication, not anything else works.

When I think of a doctor's oath of "first do no harm" I can't imagine any of them ever agreeing to remove a healthy limb. But when I read about this disorder and what people are willing to do to be rid of their body part I do have to wonder if a doctor's denial is more harmful.

What do you think?