Overcoming Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors: A Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment for Hair Pulling and Skin Picking

Overcoming Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors: A Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment for Hair Pulling and Skin Picking

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Far-Reindeer3898 posted on r/dermatillomania3w

As a psychologist, this!!! Completely agree! The gold standard treatment is called Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment COMb for Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs). It’s a really successful treatment in reducing or even eliminating picking in for tons of people, myself included! The therapy is also relatively quick because it’s super action oriented and teaches you tools to take forward. It has also helped many of the clients I work with! I had been picking severely and consistently for like two decades. I did the treatment 5 years ago and found so much hope and relief from the treatment. Athough I still pick when I’m stressed or I’m not being as diligent about using the skills I learned, the time I spend picking and number of episodes have decreased like 80% overall. And when I’m super diligent and use the skills as consistently as I should, my picking is down like 95%! Here’s more info on BFRBs and the COMb treatment if you’re interested. https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/comprehensive-behavioral-comb-treatment-for-skin-picking-and-hair-pulling-disorders/ I can’t offer specific advice but I can offer general info about possible options to look into to see if they might be appropriate for you! In terms of therapy: I reccomend trying to find a specialized BFRB therapist, but if you can’t, a general OCD therapist is probably your best bet because BFRBs are under the OCD umbrella. Even if they don’t treat BFRBs, the treatment is relatively similar to other OCD spectrum disorders and they can likely easily adapt their work, especially if they are interested in learning about and using the COMb intervention! Or if you get a general therapist, you could always ask about their work with BFRBs and whether they’d be willing to look into using specialized treatments for OCD or BFRBs in your work together. You can find BFRB therapists and OCD therapists here:There is actually a self-help book written by the people who created the gold standard COMb treatment for BFRBs if you don’t want to see a therapist or can’t afford one! The authors are internationally renowned OCD and BFRB clinicians and researchers so it’s not pseudoscience or BS like some self-help books can be. I’ll share the Amazon link but you can probably find it elsewhere for cheaper. It’s on Thriftbooks for like $15. You can do it in your own or with a therapist. If you can’t find a specialist, perhaps see if a general therapist would be able and willing to walk you through the book and treatment together if they think the treatment is a good fit for you! https://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Body-Focused-Repetitive-Behaviors-Comprehensive/dp/1684033640/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=25I674VNAH960&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kvfPGzSkDuE21BqJW4LmpBOecjiaOg56curMFUpq9RSqBKMBSXYq7j6WswvOWAcT1L3AE-Ffg5lkNKOX3WAiDIpQNZOX-1iz7Qel24uvfJilKMbVQj1kai9DwsUhQxcrgqe5NXA_hodFhTtt-kGIKspVcI8SkTyTOJhR9XXtVuWaEgABRKxBsnBeb8n_S9reWjzpzKJokG4UrkgubU8T2g.0eOjhKYOwWlP0EZOHhGlO_GjzktNpS9xBS4ljXNggAk&dib_tag=se&keywords=comprehensive+treatment+body+focused&qid=1780842289&sprefix=comprehensive+treatment+body+focused+%2Caps%2C875&sr=8-1 Finally, there is an app called Skinpick that is a little pricey but cheaper than traditional therapy if you don’t have good insurance. You get a therapist but it’s mostly non-face to face interactions with them. Primarily texting your therapist and doing the homework on your own. From my experience with them, they use most of the techniques of COMb and the app is super user friendly. When I used it they also tracked your behavioral and emotional patterns, so you can see your progress over time. That was very cool. It was probably my least favorite, with the specialized therapist being first and the book second. But that’s just me! I know it helps many people!! Lastly I want to say that I’m not affiliated with any of the things or people I shared above. I just know how much this disorder sucks and how little information is out there, so I wanted to share in case it was helpful! I’m not allowed to give super personalized therapy advice to people who aren’t my clients but I’m happy to answer general questions about the treatment or my experience with them if that’s helpful for you. ❤️ Rooting for you!!!

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