Hair pulling cues

ready, set....pull?

Cues for hair pulling in humans have been studied, most notably by Christenson et al. (1993).  Two distinct types of cues were recognised.  These are as follows:

Type 1. negative affect e.g. anger, embarrassment, shame, depression , anxiety, emotional hurt.

These type one cues point to extreme frustration, where a situation is leading to an emotion or state of mind that the individual cannot cope with and nor can s/he escape from it.  In other words, the situation cannot be transcended and the mind becomes trapped or stuck in an undesirable state. 

Type 2. sedentary contemplative situations, e.g. feeling alone, tired, relaxed, getting too little sleep.

In these type two situations a natural state of transition - whereby feeling alone or tired should lead to seeking social contact or sleep - has not been achieved.  Indeed, such a transition may be being avoided or negated.  Maybe a loss of continuity is feared; a loss of temporal identity.  The bottom line is that the organism falls back upon the body to offer comfort and exercise control over its immediate environment.

Cognitive behaviourists when dealing with hair pulling will try to remove pullers from those situations that seem to cue the behaviour.  They might tell the person to sit in a different chair than they would normally, as if the problem had something to do with the room's furnishings!!  This kind of lack of professional understanding is rather shameful in my view.   Instead, they should be focused on the function of displacement behaviour and how its stereotypical manifestation indicates the presence of a real problem in the patient's history which relates to their earlier environmental adaptation.  Psychology can only have credibility to the extent that it fulfills itself as a true science and does not confuse band aids for cures.