Hair Pulling Disorder & Skin Picking: Evidence-Based Approach to Treating Trichotillomania and Excoriation

Course overview

Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRB) disorders, including Hair Pulling Disorder (also called Trichotillomania) and Skin Picking Disorder (also called Excoriation Disorder), are neither rare nor benign conditions. As many as one in 20 people have engaged in non-cosmetic BFRBs resulting in bodily damage and personal distress. Yet these conditions are often unidentified as legitimate clinical disorders, and those iindividuals have been underserved by the clinical community. In this presentation, Charles Mansueto, Ph. D, will provide an overview of BFRBs, will highlight their treatment and will present recent research findings on BFRBs. The primary focus of the workshop will be to introduce the Comprehensive Behavioral (ComB) treatment approach, an evidence-based therapy that is widely used by expert BFRB clinicians. ComB treatment provides a conceptual framework that encompasses and integrates sensory, cognitive, affective, motor and environmental variables into an individualized treatment package geared to the clinical phenomenology of the individual. In this presentation, the unique advantages of ComB treatment over alternative approaches will be highlighted, and case vignettes will illustrate how to implement treatment consistent with the ComB approach and the needs of the client.