Thursday, December 5, 2013

Stop Skin Picking With Hypnotherapy

Compulsive Skin Picking, or dermotillomania, is a condition the can seriously impact on an individual's personal and work life. It can affect anyone and at any time.What may well begin as an apparently innocent activity - an attempt to deal with minor irregularities and skin imperfections - can all too soon turn into a compulsion that leaves the individual feeling powerless and confused.The individual who consistently picks at his or her skin can spend long periods engaged in this activity and this can have a truly negative impact on their work and social relationships.In severe instances, this often poorly understood condition can result in severe skin damage leading to actual disfigurement.Usually, the person suffering from this compulsive disorder repeatedly scratches, picks, rubs or digs their nails into the skin. Quite often this condition can be triggered by stress and unresolved emotional difficulties such as anxiety, grief or simple boredom.Modern thinking on CSP or dermotillomania is that it belongs to a group of disorders known as Body Focused Repetitive Behaviours or BFRBs. Other conditions belonging to this group are such things as chronic nail biting and compulsive hair pulling.It is important that anyone engaging in compulsive skin picking consult a medical doctor so that any possible medical condition can be eliminated.This is necessary in order to make sure that the skin picking activity is a separate issue and not a symptom of some other more serious underlying disorder such as an autoimmune or developmental problem.Many people find that they begin to pick at their skin during a stressful period in their lives.The individual learns, through repetition, that by picking at the skin they can exercise some degree of control or at least distract themself from the underlying difficult feelings and emotions. And so the skin picking becomes a habit.Others may have started picking at skin following some kind of skin disease or injury. As the wound to the skin begins to heal a scab forms which can feel itchy. This may cause the person to pick or scratch, and this in turn prevents the wound from completely healing. And this in turn leads on to even more itching and picking as further scabbing occurs.Often the medical response to dermotillomania is to prescribe a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor such as Prozac. Though this approach has had a degree of success, it works only on the symptoms. It does absolutely nothing about the underlying causes or drivers.Other approaches include cognitive behavioral therapy, including Habit Reversal Training (HRT) which aims at identifying triggers and teaching the individual coping strategies. This approach has also had some success, but again, it focuses on managing the actual symptoms, rather than dealing with the real underlying drivers and cause.In the opinion of this therapist, a more effective approach is to uncover the actual causes and drivers of the skin picking through the use of advanced and skillfully applied hypnotherapy techniques and strategies.The dermotillomania is being driven by subconscius urges, so it is to the subconscious mind itself that we need to turn if we are to bring about a solution to this harming behaviour.Once the underlying reasons and drivers for the dermotillomania have been uncovered, the subconscious mind can be helped to 're-programme' itself and the skin picking simply becomes extinct or replaced with a more helpful anxiety or stress release strategy.If you or someone you care about suffers from compulsive skin picking, picking at skin or dermotillomania, and you really do want to stop skin picking, do not despair, help is available.With modern advanced hypnotherapy you can end compulsive skin picking, regain control and live your life free of this debilitating habit.

Peter Field is a leading figure in the field of British hypno-psychotherapy, with clinics in London and Birmingham, England. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Health and Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. For a FREE self hypnosis download. More of his interesting and informative articles please visit his website: Peter Field Hypnotherapy Hypnotherapist Birmin

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