Have you heard of the mental disorder tricotillomania?

Question

Or do you know someone who has it?

I just wanted to see how common this disorder is to people......

Ttricotillomania is an impulse control disorder in which people pull out their hair, not usually in great clumps, but in a meticulous sort of way, one by one...... it's actually quite sad..... the person can be left bald, being unable to stop themselves from pulling their own hair.... and it's not a masochistic thing..... it's more of a stress releiver.....

Answer 1

It depends on what the cause of it is.

It may be a symptom of Obsessive Comulsive Disorder, Autism, severe distress, or a number of other disorders which may be relieved in various ways depending on the diagnosis.

In this case, "impulse control disorder...stress reliever" it sounds like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

The most effective medication for OCD are anti-depressants in the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) family.

HOWEVER, Behavioural therapy is more effective than medication for OCD (and many other psychological problems), do not include physical side effects, and have a lower incidence of relapse once treatment has ended.

Behavioural therapy for tricotillomania will likely involve some sort of punishment (which is actually very mild don't worry) or penalty procedure (such as time-out, away something that he/she likes temporarily, not giving affection during the behaviour) and reinforcement for good behaviour. You'd be shocked by how much of our behaviour is controlled by the results of our actions.

Behavioural therapy is actually based on some rather complicated prinicples, so you'd definitely must get a trained behavioural analyst for it. It's also so effective it often doesn't take long for the behaviour to decrease.

Oh, and it'll should help no matter what the diagnosis is.

I was going to post some links for you, but I got back so many results do a search yourself. Search for behavioural therapy tricotillomania and you'll find tons of information on it.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Well I have it and I pulled all my eyelashes out when I was 6 years old. SO many that I have about a dozen upper eyelashes. Who'd have told me I would need eyelashes as an adult female. My daughter has it too. SHe is 21 and pulls out her eyebrows.
We both have OCD issues and I have been anorexic. When I was in college my roomate was anorexic and a hair puller. It is quite common and uncontrollable in times of stress.

Answer 3

I basically wanna discuss to the first answerer that I take position to have unhappy (Seasonal Affective disease) and its ****. So thanks, in spite of the undeniable fact that this is genuinely authentic adequate to be in there. some psychological issues might want to sound crackers, yet in case you commence going round declaring particular ones are humorous and/or stupid then you definately will shatter self esteem. What if someone who has spent years privately struggling with a psychological ailment takes position upon this question, and be conscious's a press release about what they trust they have? Will they have the boldness now to hunt the help they choose? Or will they worry being laughed at, or being referred to as stupid. you do not imagine a lot, do you?

Answer 4

My daughter had it for nearly a year when she was 9. She was subsequently diagnosed with OCD and borderline personality disorder when she turned 16. The trichotillomania was controlled with Prozac and stress relief techniques that she learned in one visit to a child psychiatrist.

Answer 5

I have known people several people with this disorder. It is fairly common.

One would pull out their eyelashes; one her hair at the crown of her head; another somewhere else (if you know what I mean).

I think it is mainly a stress/boredom thing. Compulsive in nature, I would believe. I guess there are treatments out there. I don't know.

Answer 6

I have heard of it. I work with doctors, and a psychiatrist wrote about it for a column. I don't know anyone with it, but he wrote that it affects at least 2 percent to 3 percent of the population. If you think about it, that's a lot of people. There's also a support organization for it, which I've listed in the sources.

Answer 7

It's a form of OCD. I have a good friend with OCD - and he's a film maker. He made a few films about OCD (The Touching Tree and The Risk). I learned about this discorder by hanging out with him - and studying about OCD in order to act in his films.

When I learned about it - I thought about a friend in college who used to pull her eyelashes out - to the point where she would buy fake eyelashes - because she had none. She'd say, "I don't know why I do it. I'm sick." I'm pretty sure that she had tricoltillomania.

Answer 8

Yup. I knew a guy a long time ago. He was stressed out a lot and he had patches all over his head where he had pulled out the hair.

Answer 9

I knew one girl who was 12 who had it. Her hair was patchy in spots. She suffered sexual and physical abuse and had a lot of of out of control anger. This was how she coped with it. She learned to do other things that would create that same feeling of calm she would get from.

Answer 10

I've heard of it. I don't know anyone who has it, but I can tell you that it's thought to effect as much as 4% of the population.