Tearing one’s hair out: French expression and psychological disorder

This repetitive behavior which consists in pulling out one’s hair, can sometimes leads to alopecia. This compulsion gives pleasure and calming on the moment and gives the impression of fighting against thoughts said to be anxiety provoking. The cause of that kind of crisis may be a stress, anxiety or anger factor. The result are instinctual and incontrollable gestures. We could almost think about an OCD whereas it’s more a behavioral addiction.

La crisis of trichotillomania is often followed by a feeling of shame because the persons know they can control themselves. There a risk of self-exclusion. Most of the time, we can note an underlying uneasiness linked to a negative emotion, boredom and anger. The depression is associated to that trouble in half of the cases. Most of the persons who suffer of that disease are women. That problem can appear during childhood or adolescence.

There are not many solutions for that problem. The cognitive behavioral therapy is a beginning. Le aim is to understand why and in which context that trouble occurs and how to correct it. Some of the therapists encourage their patients to resort to hypnosis which obtains satisfying results. The chemical treatments, antidepressants give very little results.