If you have ever wanted to stop pulling your hair and enjoy a different quality of life, then this may be the most important website you ever find.

Here’s Why:

Trichotillomania involves compulsive hair pulling, often outside of conscious awareness. Many people who sufferer trichotillomania do not know why they pull their hair. In fact, they sometimes blame themselves and feel guilty, which can feed the cycle. The exact causes of trichotillomania are unknown. However in my experience, the causes differ between individuals who pull their hair. Some people, not everybody, with trichotillomania report feelings of pleasure during hair pulling episodes. This does not mean they are crazy. It does mean that the mind learned to link a pleasurable sensation to an ordinarily unpleasant habit. Part of therapy is to help change this link.

Of course, trichotillomania can accompany other difficulties such as anxiety or anger. In any event, the mind’s aim behind trichotillomania intends to serve a positive purpose, although it probably feels like a constant frustrating battle! A conflict of failed attempts to stop trichotillomania won’t change the part of the mind that keeps you pulling at your hair. Therefore the cause needs to be discovered for each person who is willing to change. SHame and guilt usually are at the heart of compulsive hair pulling.

The good news is, no matter how deeply ingrained your trichotillomania, you can stop the habit of hair pulling, even if you feel like you have tried hypnotherapy or counselling before.

In our Brighton clinic, we work with individuals to help them stop trichotillomania, rather that prescribing a one size fits all approach. We have more respect for you than that!

What can I expect from a session?

The first session is to find out if you click with me, and if I think I can help you to help yourself manage trichotillomania once and for all. This is usually the outcome, depending on various factors such as how willing people are to address issues.

We will work together to help you to stop pulling your hair by exploring how to understand your feelings buried behind trichotillomania. Approaches applied will depend upon what we consider most valuable for you, and may include one or a combination of psychotherapy, counselling, hypnotherapy (Ericksonian and traditional) and NLP. The point is to find out what is best for you to change your hair pulling compulsive habit and resolve its causes, so you can discover lasting inner peace and real happiness without dependency on something outside yourself. This way, you will be in charge of your mind, rather than feeling like the cycle of trichotillomania and disappointment is controlling you. Oh and if you have other habits other than compulsive hair pulling that you want to change, I can help you with these, too.

How long will treatment take?

Usually after a few sessions we will know how the therapy is helping, and then we will have a clearer idea of how long to expect for lasting change to occur. It may take only a few sessions for you to stop pulling your hair, depending on the causes and your willingness to contribute to helping yourself. Regular sessions for long term results may be indicated in some instances, until you have things under control, at which point we can space out frequency of sessions and then discontinue. It is, of course, impossible to say at this stage how long it will take your trichotillomania habit to finish. Most people that complete a realistic course of treatment report feeling better within themselves as a result of ending the old habit of hair pulling, regardless of their past experiences.

How are you Different?

Since trichotillomania is often an out of awareness experience (at certain times), I help people gain greater impulse control both conciously and sub-consciously. When you have trichotillomania treatment in our Bayside clinic, we work a little differently to what you may be used to. My priority is to help you stop compulsively pulling hair, addressing this from as many angles as necessary. A short outcome and session rating tool is used to measure effectiveness of each session and your in between progress, which allows us to track how I am being helpful, together. A fair amount of research suggests we should see changes pretty early on in therapy. If after 3-4 sessions there is no improvement, I will attempt to change or modify my method. If that still doesn’t help, I will work with you to find someone else more suitable. I have training in counselling, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, nlp and Buddhism psychotherapy, which means I have a wide range of tools available to help you stop trichotillomania at conscious and sub-conscious levels of your mind.

For many people, the cost of staying the same is too high. You may email me for more details, or call on 9530 6353 to make a confidential appointment, which is your first corageous staep towards being free from trichotillomania. I look forward to our journey, should you choose it, in helping you to be in control, happy and social again.