Most of the people in my practice who suffer from skin picking or hair pulling initially have a deep sense of shame and guilt about their habit. They often wonder what’s wrong with them. Why do they ...

Body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) is when a person compulsively engages in body-focused habits, such as skin picking, cheek chewing, hair pulling, and similar. It is difficult for people to stop ...

I sat nervously in the exam room, staring at the floor as my mom sat nearby. At age ten, I’d never been to a dermatologist before, and I didn’t know what to expect. My pessimistic mind pictured a ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For patients with chronic skin picking, a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder, that is severe enough to cause physical damage, results of a small study suggest that the ...

DENVER — Skin-picking and hair-pulling disorders are “underrecognized, understudied, and undertreated,” a dermatologist told colleagues, but medications — especially glutamatergic agents — are showing ...

For people who can't stop biting their nails or picking at their skin, a new study suggests that a simple technique could help. Body-focused repetitive behaviors — compulsively pulling or picking at ...

A fear of being alone triggered my new habit. It was almost the holidays, and another good friend — one of the few left unmarried — became engaged. Immediately, the fear I'd had since childhood of ...

Psychology says biting the skin around the fingers may be linked to body-focused repetitive behaviors, emotion regulation, ...

(CNN) — Compulsive nail-biting, skin-picking, hairpulling, and lip- and cheek-biting are among a range of body-focused repetitive behaviors, or BFRBs, that can become a source of distress, but new ...

Dear Carol: My mom is in mid-stage Alzheimer’s, so she has fidgety hands. Even though I lotion her skin regularly, she’ll zero in on a random spot on her arm and pick it open. I’ve contacted the ...

It’s hard to manage or stop a behavior when it isn't always clear when and why you're doing it. Skin picking and hair pulling are often so habitual that they happen either consciously or unconsciously ...