Trichotillomania and anxiety are pretty much like peanut butter and jelly.
Anxiety, or other such like negative stimuli relating to stress, is pretty much the cause for the hair pulling behavior that is the most characteristic symptom of this condition.
Take away the anxiety (or etc.
), and the trichotillomania is gone, simple as that.
Of course, if you could take that away, the whole world would be a much better place indeed.
But I digress...
the route to a cure is in understanding the cause, not in how to drug away the symptom, correct? With many of the old therapies, of the medication-based type in particular, this is pretty much what has been done.
The cause hasn't been addressed so much as the effect.
Many have been treated as though trichotillomania and anxiety were one and the same, and were given antidepressants, usually of the type which have serotonergic properties, such as those given to patients with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
The effect seems largely to be a masking of the stimuli which triggers the behavior, basically numbing the senses.
Cloropramine (also known as Anaffranil) has been one which has stood out to be the most effective among drug therapies...
at least, until the prescription runs out.
In dealing with trichotillomania and anxiety, the most successful type of therapy however, is non-intrusive and drug free.
The behaviorally based therapies have changed lives in today's world, often completely eliminating the condition from people's lives altogether.
The best among these techniques, which seems to show the highest reported success rates of all, appears to be the technique known as "behavioral substitution", or behavioral replacement" therapy.
Anxiety, or other such like negative stimuli relating to stress, is pretty much the cause for the hair pulling behavior that is the most characteristic symptom of this condition.
Take away the anxiety (or etc.
), and the trichotillomania is gone, simple as that.
Of course, if you could take that away, the whole world would be a much better place indeed.
But I digress...
the route to a cure is in understanding the cause, not in how to drug away the symptom, correct? With many of the old therapies, of the medication-based type in particular, this is pretty much what has been done.
The cause hasn't been addressed so much as the effect.
Many have been treated as though trichotillomania and anxiety were one and the same, and were given antidepressants, usually of the type which have serotonergic properties, such as those given to patients with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
The effect seems largely to be a masking of the stimuli which triggers the behavior, basically numbing the senses.
Cloropramine (also known as Anaffranil) has been one which has stood out to be the most effective among drug therapies...
at least, until the prescription runs out.
In dealing with trichotillomania and anxiety, the most successful type of therapy however, is non-intrusive and drug free.
The behaviorally based therapies have changed lives in today's world, often completely eliminating the condition from people's lives altogether.
The best among these techniques, which seems to show the highest reported success rates of all, appears to be the technique known as "behavioral substitution", or behavioral replacement" therapy.