Hypnotherapy For Nail Biting,Hair Pulling and Skin Picking Melbourne

Nail Biting, Hair Pulling, Skin Picking

(Also known as Onychophagy, Trichotillomania and  Dermatillomania)

Now known Collectively as Body Focused Repetitive Behaviour

Why Do I Do It?

Nail biting is a common issue of childhood that often extends into adulthood and can make us very self-conscious about people seeing our hands.  

Nail biting was recently added to the Diagnostic and Statistics  Manual and placed into the same category as OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorders) along with Hair Pulling ( trichotillomania) and Skin Picking (dermatillomania).    These are also known as forms of pathological grooming.  

These grooming behaviours stem from normal grooming behaviours, such as removing a broken or jagged nail, but then becoming out of hand so that the behaviour is exhibited even though there is no real need for it. Usually, this behaviour starts with a trigger, e.g. stress, fatigue, boredom, but over time, the behaviour becomes automatic and is present even when there are no triggers that the person is consciously aware of.

What makes it different from OCD is that people with OCD consciously believe and feel they have to do something or something bad will happen, whereas people with pathological grooming habits seek a feeling of satisfaction, a somewhat off-kilter sense of reward.

This is why nail biting is often a learned behaviour, i.e. a child will observe an admired adult doing it and will mimic the behaviour until it becomes a habit for them, too. Sometimes, when young, we associate the behaviour with something cool, e.g. with intense thinking being introspective.

​Nail biting, hair pulling, and skin picking can be passed down through our genes, too,  although even if there is a history of nail-biting in your family, studies show that you are still only 80% likely to adopt the habit based on genetics alone.

Nail biting is not a life or death issue; some people are quite comfortable with the habit and have no desire to overcome it. However, for some people, it becomes a big issue as they feel self-conscious about the appearance of their hands; they may be in a profession where appearance is important, they may not want to be perceived as nervous, etc.  Skin picking and Hair Pulling can become very debilitating as they become harder and harder to explain or disguise. 

Breaking Free from Hair Pulling and Skin Picking can become more debilitating, with quite severe damage being inflicted.  Often, the signs of hair pulling and skin picking have to be disguised with cosmetic interventions such as hair extensions, make-up concealer, long sleeves, etc. and will leave the person feeling very self-conscious and worried that people will notice the extent of the damage.  

In my experience, these behaviours often come from an imprinted experience, which has resulted in a feeling of shame or a belief that punishment is deserved.  The memory of the experience might even seem insignificant to the person now, but at the time, the feeling it elicited made a very powerful imprint on the brain and the coping or self-soothing mechanism that the brain decided on at the time was to pick the skin or pull the hair, so that the persons focus went to that rather than to have to deal with the emotional disturbance.

When the brain registers that this mechanism helped you 'survive' that situation, it may generalise the behaviour and initiate it to deal with any uncomfortable feeling or situation.  Each time we repeat a behaviour, we reinforce the neural pathways that it follows.  

In my sessions, I use Clinical Hypnotherapy, Counselling, and EFT (also known as Emotional Freedom Therapy or Tapping) to release the stuck emotion associated with the initial experience and to retrain the brain to process emotional fluctuations more healthily.  I teach my client various pattern interrupt techniques to stop the build-up of the compulsion to pick or pull while their brain is creating the new neural pathways required to process emotions more effectively.

​To find out more about how I can help you, please call Hypfocus. 

Thanks to the power of hypnosis, this is generally a short term therapy, I typically recommend a minimum of 4 sessions for these issues; however, for some people, more may be required as there may be a variety of underlying issues to resolve and to build new pathways for a healthier, happier person free of the compulsions to pull hair and pink skin.   Effective treatments require commitment. 

Most people who come to me have already tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy; this therapy helps many people; however, something more is required for many others.  Hypnosis provides a holistic approach addressing thoughts, emotions and physical feelings, which all contribute to the issues.

Read my Blog Post on Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviours