PSY 338 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Trichophagia, Trichotillomania
8 Apr 2020
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Document Summary
An excessive and persistent preoccupation with imagined profound defects or flaws in appearance. These defects/flaws are either not noticeable, or slightly noticeable to others. Cause significant distress and impairment in the sufferer. Focus can be any part of appearance. Hair pulling disorder where person pulls out hair at various bodily regions. Sensory - feeling the length and location of the hair. Emotion - feeling anxious, bored, upset, angry. Focused pulling - generally occurs when the patient sees or feels that a hair is not right, or that a hair feels coarse, irregular, or out of place . Trichophagia - more than 20% of patients eat the hair after pulling it out. This can be more embarrassing to the patient than the pulling. They hide this from clinicians as well as loved ones. Physical consequences: the ingestion of hair can result in the formation of gastrointestinal hair-masses which cause obstructions that may require surgical intervention.
