Trichotillomania

1. The repetitive removal of body hair with an accompanying sense of gratification, pleasure or relief from anxiety.

2.  The person will pull hair from the scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes are most commonly pulled.  Often the person does not even realize how much they are doing.

3.  Hair is not normally pulled out in clumps, but one strand at a time.

4.  They will often examine and then put the hair root in their mouth.

5.  For the above reasons, these people are often fairly secretive about their problems.

6.  It is equally common in boys and girls, but the older the client, the more the males do not continue the behaviors.

7.  These people are often embarrassed about their behaviors and typically do not seek therapy, unless the hair pulling is noticed by others.  However, about 3 million people in the US have this disorder

Excoriation Disorder

1.  A fancy word for skin picking disorder.

2. These people will continue to pick places on their skin and continue to pick a sore place, so that healing takes a very long time.

3.  It is closely correlated to depression, anxiety and OCD behaviors

4.  In adolescents, it may not be noticed due to normal health issues for teens, such as acne.

5.  It involves excessively and impulsively scratching, rubbing or picking normal skin which creates skin lesions (sores).  These clients do not feel that they can control this behavior.

6.  They do not feel they need counseling.

Assignment:  Since I gave a short list of notes, I will try to give a more in-depth assignment.  What is the best therapy for each of these problems?  How do you notice these things when they can be very hard to spot.  What would cause these problems?  Root cause, not just anxiety.  You may have to use a lot of notes and personal thinking to come up with this one.