The body becomes the instrument of a practical act in which desires for an imagined idealized body and its imagined lacking parts must be realized. In the psychophysiological model adopted by us, we can see how such activities represent senso-motorical explorations, that give a contribution to the construction of the body image and corresponding identity. The stronger the individual's need is to live in the desired gender role, the greater the determination to affect physical changes. Evidently, there is a circular relationship between peripheral information being integrated in a sense of gender identity and this sense of gender identity in turn influencing physical behavior. A person's gender identity is subject to feedback from the social environment which can be confirming or challenging the person's inner psychological experience.
Gender dysphoria is socially and emotionally complex and generates conflict with the external world.
The desperate projection to a future time when the body will finally express one's inner identity contributes to the construction of a body image based on disowning especially those discordant parts of the body that are outwardly visible. This negative attitude towards one's own body leads to a serious interference with establishing sexual relationships during adolescence. Gender dysphoric persons who proceed to sex reassignment surgery have a desperate need to coincide the appearance of their physical self with their inner sense of gender identity in order to resolve the anxiety provoking conflict between perception and body representation. Both analytic and synthetic perceptions were examined. It is interesting to analyze which body areas are more inhibited, conflictual or anxiogenous.