Panic Attack and Anxiety Healing: Let’s Talk Neuroplasticity
The brain performs countless miracles every second of each and every day. I’d like to discuss one such miracle that brings so much hope for those suffering from mental and emotional disorders. It’s an amazing compensatory process of the brain known as neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity is all about the brain reorganizing its neuron-to-neuron connections in response to new circumstances and environments. Though it performs its magic primarily during infant, toddler, and pre-pubescent brain development; the adult brain can be amazingly “plastic.” Neuroplasticity also comes into play within the context of disease and injury, explaining, let’s say, how a stroke victim regains a particular function even though the area of the brain responsible for that function has been badly damaged. Neuroplasticity occurs, shall we say, automatically as a process of development. But it can also occur by choice – willfully - giving us conscious management of the dynamic. And therein lies the hope.
A very, very wise man, Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D., and his colleagues at UCLA, discovered that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can positively impact the brain machinations involved in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in a manner similar to psychotropic medications. Briefly, CBT, a psychotherapeutic intervention, is grounded in the pivotal role of thought as it applies to our feelings and behavior. If we’re experiencing distress, the mission of CBT is to identify the faulty thinking (cognitive distortions) causing the problems and teaching us how to swap these misguided thoughts with material that’s based in reason. Then it’s a matter of taking this enlightened thinking to the world and enjoying our more desirable responses and behaviors.
Trichotillomania – Causes, Symptoms, Information with Treatment
Hair pulling can occur on any part of the body where hair grows. The most common area of hair pulling is the scalp. Hair pulling is divided two types focused pulling and nonfocused (or automatic) pulling. Focused pulling is an intentional act to control aversive feelings. Nonfocused pulling is generally a habitual type of pulling. Patients in dermatological clinics largely are in the latter group. Some patients show both subtypes of hair pulling together or with various overlapping behaviors. However, hair pulling also can occur on the eyebrows, eyelashes, pubic region, and any other area of the body with hair.
The alopecia that results from hair pulling can range from small undetectable areas of hair loss to total baldness. Pulling hairs from other objects or people: Occasionally, patients may engage in hair pulling or plucking from other people, pets, dolls, or other fibrous materials (eg, carpets). In trichotemnomania, a rare condition, the scalp looks like an alopecia totalis but all follicle openings are uniformly filled with hair material. The condition is an obsessive-compulsive habit of cutting or shaving the hair and is different from trichotillomania. Habit reversal training (HRT), a cognitive behavioral therapy, has been successfully used in the treatment of trichotillomania. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly given to improve symptoms. Prozac is a common SSRI. Drugs in this class given to treat trichotillomania in children include sertraline (Zoloft), fluvoxamine (Luvox), and clomioramine.
Causes of Trichotillomania
Common causes and risk factors of Trichotillomania
Serotonin deficiency:
Structural brain abnormalities.
Abnormal brain metabolism.
Psychological theories.
Childhood trauma.
Stressful events.
Neurochemical imbalance.
Signs and Symptoms of Trichotillomania
Sign and symptoms of Trichotillomania
Hair loss.
Increasing sense of tension.
Hair pulling leads to an uneven appearance
Bare patches or diffuse (all across) loss of hair
Hair regrowth in the bare spots feels like stubble.
Treatment of Trichotillomania
Common Treatment of Trichotillomania
Habit reversal training (HRT), a cognitive behavioral therapy, has been successfully used in the treatment of trichotillomania.
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly given to improve symptoms. Prozac is a common SSRI. Drugs in this class given to treat trichotillomania in children include sertraline (Zoloft), fluvoxamine (Luvox), and clomioramine.
Cognitive behavioral treatment is increasingly being reported as more effective than the combination of psychotherapy and pharmacological therapy. The author recommends that dermatologists be familiar with the treatment.
Stimulus Control is a well-known behavioral treatment that in the case of trichotillomania, seeks to help sufferers first identify, and then eliminate, avoid, or change the particular activities, environmental factors, states, or circumstances that trigger hair pulling.
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