Conditions treatable with hypnotherapy

An unexplained fear of open spaces.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing fear, breaking the habitual responses to specific triggers, improving your ability to deal with stress.

Useful products

Agoraphobia MP3
Controlling Anxiety MP3 – approved by Anxiety UK*

This section relates to excessive or binge drinking, rather than alcohol dependency.

Hypnosis can help with:

Getting in control of your habits, improving your confidence, helping you to say ‘no’ to alcohol and ensuring that you don’t replace it with any other bad habits.

Useful products

Alcohol Free! MP3
The Self-esteem Booster MP3

It is a word that has a wide ranging description, but technically it is the unpleasant emotional state consisting of unwanted physical and mental responses to an anticipation of unreal or imagined danger. The Office for National Statistics found that 1.9% of adults in Britain experience phobias. In this study it is shown that women are twice as likely as men to experience phobias. Other studies show widely differing rates, one author quotes two community surveys, one in Canada, giving a prevalence rate of 7.7 per cent and another very large US survey giving a rate of 13.3 per cent. Mind (National Association for Mental Health)

Hypnosis can help with:

Eliminating/reducing the anxiety by improving your ability to deal with stress; coping better with the triggers; working through any past event (if the anxiety was caused by a specific event or series of events).

Useful products

Controlling Anxiety MP3 – approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3

Fear of spiders. See Phobias.

An inflammatory condition that affects joints.

Hypnosis can help with:

Improved mobility, sleep, reducing triggers.

Useful products

Health and Wellbeing MP3

Assertiveness training is a form of therapy in which a client learns to feel free to make legitimate demands and refusals in situations which previously elicited inappropriate responses.

Hypnosis can help with:

Confidence, dealing with specific situations, creating a new and more appropriate way of feeling, thinking and behaving. Motivation.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
Anger Management
Achieve Financial Success
The Power of Positive Thinking

A disease process that is characterised by paradoxical narrowing of the bronchi (lung passageways) making breathing difficult.

Symptoms include wheezing, difficulty breathing (particularly exhaling air) and tightness in the chest.

Factors which can exacerbate asthma include rapid changes in temperature or humidity, allergies, upper respiratory infections, exercise, stress or smoke (from cigarettes).

Hypnosis can help with:

Relaxation, reducing the stress response, improving tolerance to allergens, as well as visualization exercises to reduce the frequency and duration of attacks.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety – approved by Anxiety UK*

Involuntary reddening, especially of the face, associated with feelings of embarrassment, confusion or shame. As most sufferers will tell you, it is not the blushing that is the problem, but the fear of blushing, hence the alternative name of 'Erythrophobia'. (Erythro- is used to denote reddening, associated with red blood cells)

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing or removing the blushing response, improving confidence in trigger situations, enhancing assertiveness.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*.

Compulsive grinding or clenching of the teeth especially at night.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing/removing the inappropriate response. Eliminating the habitual ‘clench’ response. Helping the individual deal with stress or anger issues more appropriately. Assertive training to assist the individual to handle situations more appropriately and express opinions and emotions appropriately.

Useful MP3s

Stop Teeth-grinding
Health and Wellbeing

The event of giving birth.

Hypnosis can help with:

Pain control, relaxation and confidence in your body. A specific technique is taught to you so you can ‘remove’ yourself mentally from the experience and give yourself a breather. Positive visualisations are also taught so you feel in control throughout your labour. Treatment can be planned to prepare the mother-to-be for labour and birth. Self-hypnosis can also be taught.

Relevant research

Useful products

Childbirth MP3
Health and Wellbeing MP3
Self-hypnosis MP3
Controlling Anxiety MP3 approved by Anxiety UK*

The behaviour of performing an act persistently and repetitively without it leading to reward or pleasure. The act is usually a small, circumscribed behaviour, almost ritualistic, yet not pathologically disturbing. Examples of compulsive behaviour include twirling of hair, checking something constantly, not wanting pennies in change, straightening tilted pictures, etc.

Hypnosis can help with:

Getting the behaviour back under conscious control. Breaking the cycle between trigger and response. Gaining confidence and reducing the severity of associated stress.

Useful products

Stop Hair-pulling MP3
Controlling Anxiety MP3 approved by Anxiety UK*
Health and Wellbeing MP3
Self-hypnosis MP3
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3

Confidence can wane for a number of reasons. Tiredness, feeling overwhelmed, personal history, illness or even simply being discouraged by other people.

Hypnosis can help with:

Finding and strengthening your confidence states, protecting you from negative influences, assertiveness and strategic planning.

Useful products

Be confident! MP3
The Self-esteem Booster MP3
Confidence in Public Speaking MP3
Anger Management MP3

Hypnotherapy can be beneficial in overcoming writers' or artists' blocks, along with other situations where creativity is useful, such as for problem solving.

Hypnosis can help with:

Creative visualizations, relaxation and stress management. Increasing confidence and motivation.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
Self-hypnosis

'Dentist-phobia' leads to dental problems associated with lack of dental hygiene and dental maintenance. The phobia should be addressed before the dental situation becomes unpleasant.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing anxiety, removing ‘bad associations’, relaxation techniques.

Useful products

Needle Phobia MP3
Controlling Anxiety MP3 approved by Anxiety UK*
Health and Wellbeing MP3
Pain Control MP3

Hypnotherapy is perfect to help you stay calm and focused during your driving test, and will ensure that you perform as well as you possibly can on the day.

Hypnosis can help with:

Focus, confidence and motivation.

Useful MP3s

Pass your Driving Test
Learn More Easily

A pruritic papulovesicular dermatitis occurring as a reaction to many endogenous and exogenous agents. It is characterised in the acute stage by erythema, oedema associated with a serous exudate between the cells of the epidermis (spongiosis) and an inflammatory infiltrate in the dermis, oozing and vesiculation and crusting and scaling and in the more chronic stages by lichenification or thickening or both, signs of excoriations and hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation or both. Atopic dermatitis is the most common type of dermatitis Once an organic cause has been ruled out, Eczema - as with most skin conditions - responds very well to hypnotherapy.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing the inflammation, taking control of the ‘itch/scratch/itch’ cycle. Calming the skin by improving the individual’s ability to deal with stress. Improving self-confidence and encouraging the skin’s natural growth cycle.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking
Health and Wellbeing

Fear of vomiting. See Phobias.

Many emotional difficulties can be relieved by hypnotherapy either by enabling one to cope better with those emotions, or by finding different, more appropriate emotions to replace those that are causing difficulty.

Hypnosis can help with:

Confidence, motivation and coping with the situations, moods and people who trigger the difficulties. Hypnosis is particularly effective to create positive strategies and emotions to be able to work through the problem.

Useful MP3s
Health and Wellbeing

The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

Hypnotherapy is excellent for those who suffer with anxiety before examinations.

Hypnosis can help with:

Focus, confidence and motivation.

Useful products

Pass Your Exams MP3
Pass your Driving Test MP3
Learn More Easily MP3
Self-hypnosis MP3
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
Confidence in Public Speaking MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3

Cynophobia. See Phobias.

Useful products
Fear of Dogs MP3

Many sufferers only seek help for flying phobias when they are have the prospect of a flight ahead, and they can't avoid it. Hypnotherapy can help in the short term, to enable the sufferer to take that flight, or in the long term, to dissolve the phobia completely.

Hypnosis can help with:

Removing the phobic response completely and creating a positive template for future flights, so the individual will feel completely safe and confident.

Useful MPs

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
Overcome your Fear of Flying

Specialist practitioner Phil Benjamin www.philbenjamin.com is a trained pilot as well as a fully qualified hypnotherapy practitioner, and will help you get rid of your fear of flying forever.

Mysophobia. See Phobias.

Useful products

Germ Phobia MP3

Ophidiophobia. See Phobias.

Useful products

Fear of Snakes MP3

Arachnophobia. See Phobias.

Useful products

Fear of Spiders MP3

Astraphobia. See Phobias.

Useful products

Fear of Thunder MP3

Emetophobia. See Phobias.

Useful products

Emetophobia MP3

Ability to conceive.

Hypnosis can help with:

Enhancing a fertile state, dealing with any fears or anxieties about pregnancy, working through any past related issues, such as miscarriage or abortion, and improving the individual’s capacity to relax. This is essential.

Relevant research

Hypnosis 'doubles IVF success'

Useful MP3s

Fertility (MP3s are also available on Pregnancy and Childbirth)

In order to achieve your goals you need to focus. Procrastination, lack of organisation and even lack of confidence can destroy focus, as well as constantly reflecting rather than taking action.

Hypnosis can help with:

Getting your mindset right, concentrating on what works, staying on track

Useful products

Get Motivated! MP3
Self-hypnosis MP3

A functional bowel disorder characterised by recurrent cramp-like abdominal pain and diarrhoea. Invasive gastrointestinal diagnostics are often unrevealing. There is some feeling that IBS is primarily anxiety-based in origin, and it is known to respond well to hypnotherapy. The effective use of hypnotherapy to treat IBS is well documented.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing stress responses, stimulating healthy bowel movements, dealing with initiating events (if appropriate). Confidence building is always included in the treatment, as is learning how to do self-hypnosis to reinforce the sessions.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*.
The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

In business, or in one's social life, the ability to interact easily and efficiently with others is a boon. Self-confidence issues can prevent this, and hypnotherapy can help individuals to find their inner-confidence and overcome their fears of interpersonal interaction.

Hypnosis can help with:

General confidence building, creative visualizations for specific situations, reducing fears and anxieties based on past experiences. Very effective.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
Achieve Financial Success
The Power of Positive Thinking

For those who feel they get unduly nervous before an interview, hypnotherapy can be used to great effect to bring out the confidence and strengths that are present in other situations and use them to overcome excessive fear.

Hypnosis can help with:

Relaxation techniques can be taught so that you can stay calm in the situation, and remain focused. This can then be used to build a habit of confidence.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

The ability to concentrate depends on the ability to focus on one thing and ignore distractions. By addressing the causes of the lack of concentration, individuals can discover the ability to focus intensely, with the advantage that this brings of greater retention and more efficient learning.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reduce stress, focus on your goal, maintain concentration, and improve confidence for the future.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
The Power of Positive Thinking

Whether the problem relates to one specific event, or is general - everyone goes through periods and situations where they lack confidence, but when this lack becomes habitual then hypnotherapy can help to bring it back in a positive way.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reconnecting with your ‘confident self’, reducing stress and anxiety responses, creating new patterns and habits of acting and being confident no matter where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

Low self-esteem can be the result of a lifetime of events or from a single trauma. Either way, it can be debilitating. A considered hypnotherapy program can enable one to rediscover their own self-respect and start to live the life that they always knew they could.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reprogramming your thoughts and behaviours to give you feelings of self-respect and confidence. Assertive training can be used for specific situations. Confidence building and gaining a sense of perspective over past events may also be used.

Useful products

Health and Wellbeing MP3
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
Confidence in Public Speaking MP3
Anger Management MP3
Achieve Financial Success MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3

Menopause is a stage in life when a woman stops having her monthly period. By definition, a woman is menopausal after her periods have stopped for one year. Menopause typically occurs in a woman's late forties to early fifties. It is a normal part of aging, marking the end of a woman's reproductive years. Women who have their ovaries surgically removed undergo "sudden" menopause.

Hypnosis can help with:

Stress, poor quality sleep, hot flashes and lack of confidence can all be reduced using hypnosis. Increasing confidence, improving relaxation and reconnecting with unconscious processes to regulate temperature, reduce stress and improve the quality of sleep.

Relevant research

Mind Control of Menopause (abstract)

Useful MP3s

Menopause
Health and Wellbeing

Hypnosis is excellent for motivation, whether in business, exercise... in fact any area of life where you need a push in the right direction. Hypnosis uses unconscious motivation, rather than telling you what you already know it uses your own drives and dreams.

Hypnosis can help with:

Getting started, working consistently towards, and completing your goals without stress.

Useful products

Get Motivated! MP3

Fear of germs. See Phobias.

This is a common form of habitual body manipulation which is an expression of tension. It can often be successfully treated in just one session.

Hypnosis can help with:

Taking back conscious control over the habit, and reducing any stress or anxiety which might cause it to re-occur.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

Trypanophobia (fear of injections). See Phobias.

My search for an official definition found this: A condition in sleep usually caused by improper eating or by digestive or nervous troubles, and characterised by a sense of extreme uneasiness or discomfort (as of weight on the chest or stomach, impossibility of motion or speech, etc), or by frightful or oppressive dreams, from which one wakes after extreme anxiety, in a troubled state of mind. Peaceful sleep can be achieved through hypnotherapeutic intervention.

Hypnosis can help with:

Dealing with any cause to the nightmare, such as a traumatic event, or grief, or even disturbed sleep patterns as a result of being the parent of a newborn. Hypnosis also works on relaxation and creating new patterns of behaviour. Self-hypnosis can also be taught to get back to sleep after the nightmare.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*.

Fear of snakes. See Phobias.

Whether for weight control or to stop binging, hypnotherapy is widely accepted as an excellent therapy to help control the diet and to start to eat more healthily.

Hypnosis can help with:

Re-programming the brain to recognize when you are full, re-booting the system to eat healthy nutritious food and take appropriate exercise, and deal with any emotional or situation based triggers for the over-eating.

Useful products

Effective Weight Control MP3
Sugar Free! MP3
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
Anger Management MP3
Achieve Financial Success MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3
You Can Think Yourself Thin by Ursula James (book & audio)

Hypnosis has been used for pain control (and documented) - up to and including surgery - for over 100 years. It is excellent for the pain associated with arthritis, phantom limb pain and for anaesthesia in many predictably painful situations (e.g. for dental work). The use of hypnosis in childbirth is becoming much more widespread.

Hypnosis can help with:

Training in various techniques to manipulate pain: including distraction, symptom manipulation (moving the pain or altering its effect), symptom alteration (including creating numbness or coldness), and time distortion. Hypnosis is also used for physical relaxation to reduce tiredness and muscular shielding.

Useful MP3s

Pain Control
Childbirth

Symptoms of a panic attack usually begin abruptly and include rapid heartbeat, chest sensations, shortness of breath, dizziness, tingling, and anxiety. Hypnotherapy can help identify the root cause of the anxiety and can provide tools to be used to stop a panic attack. Just knowing that you will be able to handle an attack when it happens, can greatly reduce the impact of the event.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing stress, breaking the conditioned response to perceived stressful situations, and controlling your unconscious processes so you can get on with life normally. It can reprogramme your mind to respond appropriately, no matter where you are, who you are with, and what you are doing.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster
Self-hypnosis
The Power of Positive Thinking

Many people experience acute anxiety before they have to 'perform', whether it is on a stage, a sports field, in front of an audience, or even in bed. In all situations, the underlying causes have some similarity and some uniqueness. Investigation via hypnotherapy can lead to resolution and dissolution of the problem.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reduce anxiety first and foremost, and create a positive future template instead of predicting anxiety, you will start to predict excitement, and success.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
The Power of Positive Thinking

A phobia is an irrational fear or anxiety. Hypnotherapy has long been used as an effective tool to reduce and often eliminate the fear.

Hypnosis can help with:

Being calm in the phobic situation. Reducing fear and anxiety generally. Developing feelings of control which help you get on with life.

Useful MP3s

Agoraphobia
Emetophobia
Fear of Dogs
Fear of Flying
Fear of Spiders
Fear of Snakes
Fear of Thunder
Germ Phobia
Needle Phobia
Social Phobia

The more control you have over how you feel after an operation will often be a factor in how quickly and effectively you recover.

Hypnosis can help with:

Recovery from an operation can be hastened, scarring and bruising reduced, and pain and discomfort relieved if hypnotherapy, and - once taught - self-hypnosis are used.

Useful MP3s

Recovering from an Operation
Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
Pain Control
The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

Once conception occurs many changes both physical, psychological and emotional happen, and it can potentially be a stressful time as a result of these events.

Hypnosis can help with:

The sessions are designed to help you cope better with the changes occurring in you body, and to set up a way of communicating with your unborn child. Suggestions to deal with unwanted side effects, such as nausea or sleep problems are included. Relaxation techniques are also taught.

Relevant research

Useful MP3s

Pregnancy
Childbirth
Pain Control
Health and Wellbeing

It is natural to become nervous before any significant event, but when this leads to avoidance, and that avoidance is harmful, it is essential to deal with this before it becomes physically damaging.

Hypnosis can help with:

Focusing on the relaxation and mental focus, hypnotherapy can help to bring out the confidence and calmness required to deal with the situation.

Useful MP3s

Controlling Anxiety approved by Anxiety UK*
Pain Control
The Self-Esteem Booster
Self-hypnosis
The Power of Positive Thinking

A common chronic, squamous dermatosis, marked by exacerbations and remissions and having a polygenic inheritance pattern. The most distinctive histological findings in well developed psoriasis are Munro microabscesses and spongiform pustules. It is characterised clinically by the presence of rounded, circumscribed, erythematous, dry scaling patches of various sizes, covered by greyish white or silvery white, umbilicated and lamellar scales, which have a predilection for the extensor surfaces, nails, scalp, genitalia and lumbosacral region.

Central clearing and coalescence of the lesions produce a wide variety of clinical configurations, including annular or circinate, discoid or nummular, figurate and gyrate arrangements. Like all skin conditions, if there is no organic cause, then stress-related factors are the likely culprit, and hypnotherapy can produce relief from symptoms.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing hypersensitivity to stress and external allergens. Slowing down the skin growth cycle. Improving confidence and enhancing the health auto-immune response.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
Pain Control

If you are having a problem with your partner, the first thing you can change is yourself. When you change your attitude to who you are, and what you deserve from the relationship – you can help that relationship to change. Both partners are expected to participate in this process.

Hypnosis can help with:

Confidence, understanding yourself better, motivation, changing behaviour patterns, and understanding your partner more effectively.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
Improve Your Relationship
Anger Management

Insomnia, early waking, disturbed sleep, snoring... when you are asleep your unconscious mind is still at work looking after you, and it can take care of many of the things that bother us - if only we could access it more directly. With hypnotherapy, we can do just that.

Hypnosis can help with:

Relaxation, getting to sleep, getting back to sleep, and getting more benefit from the sleep you do get. Hypnosis is also used to work with any stress based triggers which may have created the sleep problem.

Useful MP3s

Better Sleep
Health and Wellbeing
The Self-Esteem Booster
Self-hypnosis
The Power of Positive Thinking

Perhaps the most widely known and accepted use of hypnotherapy is to help stop smoking. It is effective, there are no negative side-effects (there are many positive ones) and it is a one session treatment. All that is required is the motivation to become a non-smoker.

Hypnosis can help with:

Stopping smoking, and making sure that you do not trick yourself into smoking ever again. Suggestions to make sure that you deal with stress better, and do not replace the cigarettes with food or anything else, as well as motivation to improve general health and wellbeing are also made.

Useful MP3s

Stop Smoking

The act of respiring through the open mouth so that the currents of inspired and expired air cause a vibration of the uvula and soft palate, thus giving rise to a sound more or less harsh. Once any suggestion of an organic condition has been ruled out by a doctor, hypnotherapy can be utilised to help the sufferer to find their own way of sleeping peacefully and quietly. Or, if the sufferer is not the snorer, but the snorer's partner, then it is the partner who can be helped - by learning to appreciate and enjoy the deep relaxation that the snorer is demonstrating.

Hypnosis can help with:

The snorer, to increase awareness of the positions in which they snore, so they will move out of that position and into a neutral position. Sometimes hypnosis is used to improve ways of dealing with stress, as smoking, weight problems and alcohol make the snoring worse. The snorer’s partner, to help them relax, and no longer be bothered by the snoring. When the partner starts to be bothered by snoring which has been going on a long time, it may be that the relationship itself needs to be worked on!

Useful MP3s

Better Sleep
Health and Wellbeing

Shyness and anxiety in social situations. See Phobias.

Stammering, stuttering, mumbling... many such conditions can be aided by behavioural training whilst in hypnosis.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing/eliminating the impediment using ‘eye-access’ methods.

Useful MP3s

The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
The Power of Positive Thinking

A mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and, potentially, depression.

Hypnosis can help with:

Decreasing the stress response, improving your ability to relax, breaking maladaptive patterns and creating new, positive ways of responding to potentially stressful situations.

Useful CDs

Controlling Anxiety – approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster
Confidence in Public Speaking
Anger Management
Achieve Financial Success
The Power of Positive Thinking

Spasmodic muscular contractions most commonly involving the face, mouth, eyes, head, neck or shoulder muscles. The movement often appears purposeful but is involuntary. As such activity is often exacerbated by stress, great relief can be achieved when the stress can be dealt with in an appropriate fashion.

Hypnosis can help with:

Reducing/eliminating the tic. Improving confidence and enhancing the coping strategies for dealing with stress or anxiety. Increasing self-esteem. A ‘self-advertisement’ method is sometimes used.

Useful MP3s

Health and Wellbeing
The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

Recurrent pulling out of one's hair resulting in noticeable hair loss (often followed by swallowing the hair).

An increasing sense of tension immediately before pulling out the hair or when resisting the behaviour.
Pleasure, gratification, or relief when pulling out the hair.
The disturbance is not accounted for by another mental disorder and is not due to a general medical condition (i.e., dermatological condition).
The disturbance causes significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
It is officially classified as an impulse control disorder, along the lines of pyromania, kleptomania, and pathologic gambling.

How and When Does it Start?

People often start compulsive hair-pulling around the ages of 12-13, although it is not uncommon for it to start at other ages. Frequently, a stressful event can be associated with the onset, such as: change of schools, abuse, family conflict, or the death of a parent. The symptoms also may be triggered by pubertal hormonal changes.

Does Trichotillomania Lead To Other Problems?

During adolescence - an especially crucial time for developing self-esteem, body image, comfort with sexuality, and relationships with peers of both sexes - teens may endure ridicule from family, friends, or classmates, in addition to feeling shame over their inability to control the habit. Therefore, even a small bald patch can cause devastating problems with development that can last a life time. Although many people with trichotillomania get married and carry on with their lives in a normal fashion; there are those who have avoided intimate relationships for fear of having their shameful secret exposed.

What Is the Cause?

There is no certain cause of trichotillomania, but the current view is of a medical illness. One theory on a biological level is that there is some disruption in the system involving one of the chemical messengers between the nerve cells in parts of the brain. There may also be a combination of factors such as a genetic predisposition and an aggravating stress or circumstance; as with many other illnesses. Further, trichotillomania could be a symptom caused by different factors in different individuals just as a cough can be produced by a multitude of different medical problems. Finding the cause(s) will take more research.

What Is The Relation To Other Illnesses?

For many people with trichotillomania, there are symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) such as compulsive counting, checking, or washing as well. There are so many similarities between hair pulling and other compulsive symptoms that some consider it a subtype or variant of OCD. This idea is supported by the tendency for the two problems to run in the same families and the fact that OCD medications can be helpful in treating trichotillomania.
Depression also frequently occurs in individuals with this illness. There may be a direct neuro-biochemical relationship and/or be secondary to the chronic demoralization and low self esteem hair-pulling can bring.
Other associated behaviors may include nail biting, thumb sucking, head banging, or compulsive scratching. Frequently, hair pullers also find they compulsively pick at their skin, which may also cause physical and emotional scarring.

What Treatments Are Available?

Two methods of treatment that have been scientifically researched and found to be effective are behavioural therapy and medications. However, hypnotherapy is also extremely effective and is normally far quicker than behavioural therapy and does not require any medication.

Hypnosis can help with:

Getting conscious control, breaking the habitual responses to specific triggers, improving your ability to deal with stress and generally become more relaxed.

Research into Hypnotherapy and Trichotillomania

This study describes a non-pharmacological treatment modality for children with trichotillomania. Three children with trichotillomania were treated using a hypnotherapy technique. All patients were observed in the outpatient clinic for 8 consecutive weeks and subsequently followed for 12-18 months. All children were co-operative in performing the hypnotherapy technique (relaxation/mental imagery). Two patients reported complete resolution of their complaints after 7-8 weeks and 1 patient after 16 weeks. The latter, reporting recurrence of the complaint after 4 weeks due to stressful school problems, was resolved after successful retreatment over 3 weeks. During a mean follow-up period of 16 months, there were no recurrences. In conclusion, hypnotherapy may be considered as a primary treatment modality for trichotillomania in children without associated emotional disorders.
Acta Paediatr 1999 Apr;88(4):407-10 Cohen HA, Barzilai A, Lahat E Pediatric Ambulatory Center, Petach Tikva, Israel.

Useful MP3s

Stop Hair-pulling
Controlling Anxiety – approved by Anxiety UK*
The Self-Esteem Booster
The Power of Positive Thinking

After 'stop smoking' treatments, this is perhaps the most well known use for hypnotherapy. You can achieve the weight that you desire - you already know how to do it. Hypnotherapy can help you to bring out the strengths and resources within you to make it happen and, more importantly, to adjust to the new life that you will have, so that you maintain it.

Hypnosis can help with:

Aversion to specific food types. Creating good eating habits. Increasing motivation to exercise. Improving self-esteem and dealing with emotional (comfort) eating. Also breaking the binge/purge cycle where appropriate.

Useful products

Effective Weight Control MP3
Sugar Free! MP3
The Self-Esteem Booster MP3
The Power of Positive Thinking MP3
You Can Think Yourself Thin by Ursula James (book & audio)

treatable conditions

Contact Details