There is a split in the medical world as to whether trichotillomania is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or an impulse disorder. However, what ever it is classified as, about 2% of the population know it causes them a great deal of distress, discomfort and embarrassment. The condition is as individual as the people who suffer from it. For many the symptoms will be evident as hair pulling. Literally pulling their hair out from any area of their body and even from their close relatives and partners. Others will focus on pulling hair from maybe just one area of the body such eyebrow pulling, eyelash pulling and so on.

What happens after hair has been pulled from the body can also vary from sufferer to sufferer. Some then keep the hair, whilst others use the pulled hair as dental floss and a small percentage eat the hair, which is referred to as trichophagia. Trichophagia can cause serious stomach pain and on occasions surgery is needed to remove hairball.

The hair pulling behaviour usually starts in young children with the male and female split being about 50 - 50. By with the onset of puberty 90% of recorded cases are female. Although recorded cases do not necessarily reflect the true picture. It is quite accepted in modern society that men can from an early age start to have a receding hairline and bald patches. Very little is publicly said, whilst females with bald patches, missing eyebrows etc are subject to at the very least to comment.

Diagnosis is on occasion difficult even for trichologics as often admitting this behaviour would add shame to the discomfort and may result in the loss of sympathy. As a London and Midlands based hypnotherapist who specialises in using hypnotherapy and EFT with people who have trichotillomania, I recently treated a client who