Hair Pulling In Ancient Literature - Part 4: Aristotle

Aristotle is a central figure in Western thought whose writings have shaped scientific and philosophical of our culture.  Interestingly, heo contributed to zoology in A History of Animals.  In it he focuses on hair and also hair plucking.  In the following passage Aristotle describes hair pulling and hair root extraction in a way that reveals he is talking from direct experience.

Hairs if plucked out before maturity grow again; but they do not grow again if plucked out afterwards. Every hair is supplied with a mucous

moisture at its root, and immediately after being plucked out it can lift light articles if it touch them with this mucous.

(Book 3, Part 11)

The final comment about the mucous moistness of lipid fat hair roots is something that many hair pullers would instantly recognise and is one of the most fascinating aspects of hair pulling to my mind.  Hair pullers develop a very intimate relationship with hair roots, which they explore orally.  Licking, sucking, tooth combing and eating roots is a central component of the hair pulling sequence and one that is often not mentioned very much because doctors focus more on hair extraction itself and its consequences, i.e. bald patches.  The white root, which Aristotle describes as have 'mucous moisture' is something of an edible delicacy to people with trichotillomania and the moist white lipid fat greedily consumed.  

Why is the lipid fat eaten and prized by hair pullers?  No one seems to know.  All we know is that the eating aspect forms an integral part of the cycle or sequence the behaviour.  Some psychologists have offered a symbolic interpretation - that the root represents the mother's breast.  But there is no way to verify this.  All we know is that the root offers comfort and also provides the appetitive reward that ensures the hair pulling cycle is endlessly repeated.  

All behaviours need a pay-off - appetitive or sexual - if they are to continue.  Maybe the hair root provides it.  Aristotle captures well the moist attraction of hair roots.

I'm a nomadic hunter gatherer...Get me out of here!

Home sweet home?  A settled (sedentary) lifestyle which replaced nomadism.

A major theme of this blog is what happens to organisms that are trapped or confined and unable to adapt to the situation they find themselves in.

A recent lecture by distinguished archaeologist Prof. Robert L. Kelly of Wyoming University outlined some of the reasons that led humans to give up their nomadic (roaming) way of life and become sedentary (staying in one place). 

Why is this line of enquiry important? Because historically humans have dealt with problems such as overcrowding, stresses related to food security and social inequality by simply getting up and moving on to some place new.  But if you can't change your environment you are forced to live in a situation where the pressures and stresses are ongoing - perhaps with no hope in sight.  

In such cases young organisms are especially vulnerable to psychological and physiological stresses that can produce self-directed behaviours. 

The main reason humans gave up on their roaming way of life is that we ran out of space - it was impossible to move on without encroaching on the territory of another group or tribe, according to Professor Kelly.  So you would have to be in a fairly desperate state (i.e. starving) for the conflict that comes with taking new lands to be worth the risks involved.

Robert Kelly outlined another major problem of having to remain in one location - you have to work harder to maintain the same standard of living.  Resources become more scarce and the land less fertile over time.  As a result women (who did the gathering) had to work harder and children were reared by their siblings and peers whilst mum was out labouring.  In time, slavery and loss of autonomy would follow as more and more labour was needed to keep production high.  This meant forcing people to remain in a situation that tested them to the psychological limits.  Another aspect of remaining in one place was that over time the population rose and with population pressure people became more aggressive and competitive towards the resources that were available.

Of course, the loss of the nomadic lifestyle had benefits too.  There would be less disease, food production would be streamlined and cultural advances would follow too.  But at a cost...

In modern life humans trapped in psychologically stressful situations can rarely solve the problem by walking away and starting afresh some place new.  Ongoing stresses relating to mortgage payments and job security mean families under pressure usually suffer a lot. Also families and social support networks are less strong once people are not living in smaller groups where people are more dependent on one another for survival.  In large settled towns people can come to feel isolated, powerless and insecure.  It also means that adaptive mechanisms that served our survival and well-being are less effective.  Regulating safety and comfort via approach v. withdraw behaviour is much more difficult if the dangers are embedded within an environment that you cannot escape from, e.g. a ghetto or a slum.  Social life means goal states (such as seeking comfort, safety, food security etc.) need to be negotiated socially, which places greater stress on attachments and social bonds.  If these relationships go wrong, due to illness or poverty there is a greater chance of self-directed behaviours emerging in my view. 

A sedentary lifestyle is clearly a source of great stress and though this state of affairs may be historically inevitable it must be remembered that our psychology was shaped by our nomadic past. This mismatch between where we historically came from and where we are now is fertile ground for evolutionary psychologists wishing to understand many abnormal behaviours that fall under the label of obsessive compulsive disorder, displacement behaviour, eating disorders etc.

References:
Prof. Robert L. Kelly,  (2013):  The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum (Cambridge University Press)

Hollywood and...er hair pulling?

Sam Peckinpah's 1970s western which features a hair tugging scene

Noted for his aesthetic of violence, hard drinking and not too gentle use of actors and animals, the movies of Sam Peckinpah are some of my personal favourites. The depiction of men struggling to survive in harsh landscapes, of males co-operating as well as competing and a whole catalogue of  characters from the low down and mean to the brave and stoically noble make his films a rich experience.

A friend bought me a DVD copy of Pat Garret And Billy The Kid a while ago and this week I got to watch it...it had been a long time since I had last seen it (VHS era). One hour and 20 minutes in I was really amazed by the use of hair tugging in one particular scene which perfectly fitted with the notion of this behaviour as a displacement action.

The plot leading up to the hair tugging is briefly this...A big landowner called Chisholm is buying up whole swathes of land to graze his cattle. It is the beginning of a new capitalist era in America – the big money is moving in and turning everyone who once lived freely on the land into salary men and tenants. A few men refuse to be reined in and aim to keep to the old way of life – which consists of living off the land (i.e. killing animals to eat), wandering freely without heed of fences and generally having a grand ol' time. Once such man is Billy The Kid. However, his former friend and mentor Pat Garret, has decided to give up the old life and for the sake of financial security has signed up to be a law man - paid to bring in outlaws and generally tame the west.

Pat Garret travels around in search of Billy. And one hour 20 minutes into the film is in a bar when three of Billy's associates enter (one of whom is Bob Dylan, or Alias). He commands Alias to knock out one of his colleagues with the butt of a rifle before ordering him (he calls Alias 'boy') to read from a shelf of canned food labels (it is one of the the most famous scenes of the film, with Bob Dylan reading out, 'beans', 'quality plums' and 'finest quality...beans' in the background). Pat Garret is then left to sit down and play a few 'friendly' hands of cards with the remaining cowboy, who hequestions about Billy's whereabouts.

As the situation gets more intense and the tension rises Billy's associate itches to go for his knife (Garret has already confiscated his gun). And yet he knows he must bide his time. This sets up an inner conflict whereby he wishes to kill Garret but must also oppose this impulse until the moment is right. At this point he begins to play with his hair, gently tugging at strands in a way that people diagnosed with trichotillomania might recognise. Pat Garret clearly understands human body language because as soon as he sees the displacement behaviour emerge he instantly knows that his opponent is caught in two minds. Being a natural dislacement behaviour, as opposed to a stereotypical behaviour Garret also realises that the hair pulling marks a temporary transitional state and is a precursor to the cowboy making his move. The eyes of Garret (played by James Coburn) widen as he watches intensely, waiting for the slightest sign that a move will be made – and soon it comes. The hair tugger suddenly goes for his knife but no sooner than it is drawn Garret shoots his opponent down. From a psychological perspective it is a brilliant scene and the only one I have ever seen where hair pulling features in a meaningful way.

Coburn, Dylan, Kristofferson, Peckinpah...displacement behaviour...wonderful! It is just a shame that they don't make them like that any more.

Hair pulling in ancient literature - Part Three: Epictetus

Epictetus (AD c. 55-135) the Ancient Greek stoic philosopher made an interesting mention of hair pulling in his writings. In The Discourses, Book 3, Chapter 1 (Of finery in dress) he is concerned with human vanity and fashion. It begins with, ‘A certain young man, a rhetorician, came to see Epictetus, with his hair dressed more carefully than was usual and his attire in an ornamental style.’ What follows is a philosophical statement on human nature and an affirmation of rationality as the one aspect above all others to be cultivated in a man. For Epictetus this is to be held more dear than mere appearances, such as how a person’s hair is worn. In short, a man should be more than decoration. In pursuing this point Epictetus takes issue with men who seek be what they are not, i.e., hairless.  He argues: 

And in a man it is monstrous not to have hair; and if he has no hair, he is a monster; but if he cuts off his hairs and plucks them out, what shall we do with him? where shall we exhibit him? and under what name shall we show him? I will exhibit to you a man who chooses to be a woman rather than a man. What a terrible sight! […] Indeed I think that the men who pluck out their hairs do what they do without knowing what they do. Man what fault have you to find with your nature? That it made you a man? What then? was it fit that nature should make all human creatures women?

The message is clear: a man or woman must be content with what they are and not seek to be what nature has not intended them to be. Such advice might be of more benefit to someone labelled with body dysmorphic disorder rather than trichotillomania. But what is of note in the above passage is the idea that hair pulling can occur unconsciously or ‘without knowing’. Normal grooming is understood as a premeditated action but hair extraction that is not appears to indicate a nature at even greater disharmony with itself. For Epictetus hair pulling, and perhaps unconscious hair extraction most of all, would seem to constitute a mode of self-negation borne of deeply embedded shame towards a sexual characteristic. 

Grooming deprivation and self-directed behaviours

Dr Harris' bestselling self-help book on transactional analysis

My approach to psychology is largely influenced by evolutionary theory.  The brain is an organ that developed to help man survive during the 200,000 year period in which he lived as a hunter-gatherer.  In comparison, what we understand as modern man begins with the commencement of agriculture 10,000 years ago.  In the popular mind modern man is younger than this even - he is identified with the computer age , a period kickstarted by the industrial revolution less than 200 years ago.

Not surprisingly, our perception of ourselves as modern means we do not really understand ourselves very well - by which I mean our needs.  Because we fail to understand what our brains evolved for, we fail to raise our children to be happy and well-balanced.  Parents often believe that because their child is fed, clothed and is safely watching TV that their job is done.  But if the child feels lonely or misunderstood and gets angry or demanding the parents too become childish and angry in response.  They may remind the child that s/he has been given more than they ever had and that such outbursts are indications of ingratitude and poor character.  'I don't know who he takes after' or, 'He has the devil in him,' they may say.  What the parent has failed to understand is the situation of the child from its point of view.

The child' experiences the world differently to the adult.  The child is physically smaller than the adults and may feel powerless, intimidated, separate and isolated.  The child has less freedom than adults - he must be accountable for his behaviour and if he is unhappy at home can hardly leave and get himself a place of his own.  He may feel confined - even trapped!  Above all, the child is reliant on the relationship with his parents to support his emotional needs.

 We can think of a child's needs - for understanding, attention, approval and recognition - as a need for grooming or stroking.  Grooming in primates requires a state of trust between the two groomers.  In both, the act of combing and stroking fur invokes calmness, pleasure and facilitates bonding - whereby a sense of separateness gives way in light of the close attention devoted to performing the grooming motions.

In humans, words as much as physical strokes are integral to grooming. ('Hi, how's it going?' and the like.)  Both serve the purpose of conveying to the other person that someone cares about how they feel and how they are doing. Both are acts of attention and recognition.

When a child has a parent that cannot provide this sense of well-being the ancient brain changes because for it grooming (or its lack) is a matter of survival - regardless of whether food, clothes and TVs are in abundance.  Grooming signifies closeness and bonding and without this survival for a hunter-gatherer is compromised.

In Dr Miller's book I'm Okay-You're Okay he discusses how a child unable to elicit grooming from its parents will change.  He will come to perceive himself as not okay and his parents as not okay too.  This, I'm not okay - You're not okay position is damaging because it is one of hopelessness.  The child learns the lesson that no grooming is obtainable and the adult component of his personality, which functions to obtain grooming (i.e. manipulate the social environment), gives up.  As a result he will aim to just get through life, to survive - but have no expectation of anything more than this.

How our parents treat us affects how we view others around us.  If there is no love (i.e. grooming and stroking) at home then we can see all people as 'not okay' i.e. unable to provide us with what we need.  Dr Miller views this mindset as one that leads to self-harming behaviour.  Self-hitting is a way of acting out the frustration of not being able to elict grooming from others.  The child is saying that, If I am not okay ( I need but cannot obtain grooming) and you are not okay (you are unable to provide grooming) then this (the body/self) is useless and I shall smash it. 

In my view, people who feel some part of them is unacceptable and is therefore blocking any possibility for grooming may do this too.  For example, people who feel that they are too fat, or ugly and feel unable to change this aspect of themselves may self-harm too. 

Sometimes grooming is available from the parent but it is inappropriate and approaches a taboo such as incest.  In this case, the child must oppose the impulse to be groomed by the parent because it fails to have the soothing effect he needs.  In such a case hair-pulling behaviour may emerge as a way to deactivate the approach behaviour that is triggering the incest taboo.

As we get older we must try to recover the child from the situations in which negative feelings took over - including when self-directed behaviour was first encountered.  The aim is to reconnect with and relive the situation as it was experienced at the time.  Transactional psychology aims for this but says that change can only come by evaluating the data from the past with the faculty of the adult in the present.  It is not all about the past but about the present too!

More on unnatural environments - the family unit

Since most of us grow up within family units it is useful to consider this social context in which most self-directed behaviours emerge.

Hair pulling, for example, usually appears in later childhood and the early teen years and is more widely reported in girls than boys – a statistic that may reflect the greater cultural importance of hair to women. But the real point here is that developing humans are more at risk of developing odd behaviours than fully grown ones. This is because when we are growing our bodies and minds are growing into their environment and becoming 'wired up'. Once this process is completed the pattern of wiring is more stable or set and so there is less risk of new patterns emerging - but equally abnormal patterns of behaviour that emerge during this key window are more resistant to change.

Where a disturbed behaviour is linked to the mechanics of the family unit a doctor may recommend a family therapist be brought in to study the picture. Family systems therapy grew out of work in the 1970s when the family became viewed as a network of relationships that could be directly affected by benign intervention. Preceding such intervention parents commonly brought a child to their doctor, complaining that s/he was the black sheep of the family whereas everyone else was 'normal'. However, once the family therapist analysed the social transactions between family members a very different picture would often emerge. Often the 'problem child' was being scapegoated for a systemic failure in the greater scheme of the way family relationships were ordered. It would not be until a new social order was created within the household that the scapegoated child's behaviour altered for the better – along with new relationship balances among all the family members.

By viewing the family as a system or network that embodies a greater social order (and not as made up of separate individuals) it becomes easier to identify the emergence of self-directed behaviours. A classic example is the one of the aloof father who does not support the mother with the children so that she feels isolated and depressed. One or more of the children feel forced to take on the role parent towards the mother and may become overloaded with stress and more vulnerable to self-comforting behaviours as a result. In this instance family therapy would need to focus on the parents' relationship first and not be blinded by any symptoms exhibited by the child.

Where the social order of the family is so askew that it does not reflect the wider social order outside of the home a child may well feel isolated from parents and peers, feel unable to bring people into the home environment or trust anyone enough to talk about the situation. Such extremes might include cases of incest, severe emotional neglect and the consequences of serious economic deprivation such as alcoholism, domestic violence or prostitution. Where the family system has failed a child, one can expect that some form of compensation will be found in self-directed behaviour. But pinpointing precise causes to particular self-directed behaviours is, for now, elusive.

Social order is important to human beings and where it breaks down within family relationships feelings of isolation, rejection, distrust and shame rise to the surface. All of these feelings are warning bells that tell us something is wrong and that corrective action is needed. For example, isolation should promote social attachment seeking; rejection will lead to attempts at retrieving the lost bond or self-removal from the relationship; distrust signals the need for caution and tighter self-regulation; shame may increase the tendency for hiding and self-loathing. In short, these are feelings we cannot ignore or bury but in many cases people do just that because no course of action to resolve the problems may seem available. So, people try to block out the feelings or deny them. And it is at this point that I believe we are most vulnerable to developing self-directed behaviours.

Blocking or inhibiting any part of the self sets up the scene for internal conflict. When this conflict is between two opposing impulses a sort of short circuit may occur and out of this unwanted and unexpected behaviours emerge. These have been viewed in a number of ways by ethologists and psychologists over the years. For example, Freud saw in these strange behaviours the overflow of energy and its re-channelling (or displacement) into undesirable behaviour. But more modern thinking views self-directed behaviours as unconscious strategies of self-regulation (e.g. self-comforting/grooming) or 'mental programs' that become engaged in particular conditions.

Of course, the family in itself is not an unnatural environment. But under certain conditions (e.g. where no love or approval is available to a child) it can be experienced as a captive state, one of confinement and one in which normal social roles become obscured to the extent that people lose their social sense of place and function. These are the conditions that must be guarded against.

A brief review of displacement behaviours...read all about it!

Displacement behaviours are usually self-directed actions that may appear to have no relevance to the situation in which they occur.


In this blog I focus a lot on hair pulling as an example of such phenomena.  Essentially, I believe people pull out hair in situations that reveal prolonged discomfort, embarrassment or disruption to normal behaviour. The hair pulling emerges non-consciously.

Other behaviours that have been noted as displacement behaviours are as follows:

• yawning when not tired (Krout, 1939)
  
• grooming, cleansing or modifying the attractiveness of the face (Eckman and Friesen, 1972)
  
• wetting the lips when they are not dry
  
• clearing the throat when there is no obstruction or cold
  
• hair smoothing (we see this at football matches when a goal is narrowly missed)
  

Waxer (1977) identified the mouth, torso, hand and eyes as the most common sites and targets for displacement behaviour.

To the list above I would also add these too:

• other modes of hair manipulation
  
• head scratching
  
• chin rubbing
  
• Umming and ahhing in speech (and other speech disturbances)
  
• lip biting
  
• nose picking
  
• scalp picking
  

Psychologists and ethologists have often noted that these behaviours are associated with emotional conflicts and are indicative of discomfort and anxiety.

A further interesting example is social coughing, whereby people will cough in conflict situations.  One theory is that such coughing is an automatic reflex that allows the cougher to keep his ambivalence or aversive feelings at an unconscious level. (Grumet, 1987).  In this respect, social coughing could serve as a reflex distress call or protest during an emotional conflict situation.

One theory that I find fascinating is that displacement behaviours may be a means a way of blocking speech or sound making (Elanan and Friesen, 1969).  In this sense, the behaviour emerges in a conflict situation that can neither be avoided nor met - an intolerable situation that requires the body to find some 'neutral' course.  By not speaking or expressing anything that can be construed as aggressive the person targets safety and/or comfort through behaviour that may appear odd to the outside observer.


By considering the irrelevance or superfluousness of speech or verbal expression to any of the behaviours listed above, maybe it can be shown that speaking and displacement behaviours are mutually incompatible.


One quick experiment:  Tell a member of your family to be quiet or shush them in a forceful manner (for example, on the grounds that you want to hear the news) and see if they yawn or perform a self-directed behaviour.

References:

Eckman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repetoire of nonverbal behavior:

Categories, origins, usage and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98. 

 

Eckman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1972). Hand movements. The Journal of

Communication, 22, 353-374. 

Grumet, G.W. (1987). Psychogenic coughing: A review and case report.

Comprehensive Psychiatry, 28(l), 28-34. 

Krout, M. H. (1939). Understanding human gestures. Scientific Monthly, 48-49,

167-172.

Waxer, P. H. (1977). Non-verbal cues for anxiety: An examination of emotional

leakage. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 86, 306-3 14.