The, That Makes Your Hair Disappear

In this paper one will give a description of the data established upon a case study. One will outline the major symptoms of the disorder discussed in the case. The disorder discussed in this case is Paranoid Schizophrenia. One will give a description of the client background. One will also describe any factors in the client background that may predispose him or her to the disorder. One will describe symptoms that he or she may have observed that supports the diagnosis of the individual. One will describe the inconsistency of the disorder found in the case and explain any information observed about the

Alopecia areata is a non-life threatening hair loss disease. It may not literally kill you, but in other ways deep down it could. I know this from my personal life. I have been an individual that has been suffering from alopecia for the past six years. It’s not easy living in this world with it. I feel at times that it’s a pain just to go to school and be in public with my disease.

Obsessive-Compulsive disorder is a type of severe anxiety disorder that impacts an individual’s entire life and way of functioning. Obsessions are considered intrusive and recurrent thoughts or impulses that cannot be removed through reasoning. Compulsions are the repetitive and ritualistic behaviors and actions that associate with the obsessions. These compulsions are to be performed according to specific rules or methods and are thought to prevent or reduce stress and feared situations. Both compulsions and obsessions cause disabling levels of anxiety. The individual affected is often able to recognize the behavior as excessive and irrational, but is unable to control or stop the behaviors without intervention.

Clinical physicians can use the following six criteria to diagnose mental illness, the Context of behavior, Persistence of Behavior, Social Deviance, Subjective Distress, Psychological Handicap, and (or) Effect on functioning (Who’s Crazy Here, Anyway). If a patient could have psychosis, five out of the six criteria used would be, Social Deviance, Effect on Functioning, Context of Behaviour, Persistence of Behaviour, and Subjective Distress. Social Deviance would be used because individuals suffering from Psychosis can have hallucinations (http://toronto.cmha.ca/mental_health/early-psychosis-intervention/#.WNwzrzvys2w), hallucinations make mental illness evident (Who’s Crazy Here, Anyway). Individuals suffering from Psychosis can have increased confusion, anxiety, and (or) suspiciousness (http://toronto.cmha.ca/mental_health/early-psychosis-intervention/#.WNwzrzvys2w); this would come under the criteria of Effect on Functioning. If a person is too confused to function, to suspicious of the people around them, or is too anxious, this would hindrance in their ability to function can be diagnosed and linked to a mental illness (Hock, R.). Individuals with Psychosis have extreme mood swings (from happiness to anger), also they hate to be touched (YYYYY), these to conditions of their illness could cause them to react angrily to being touched. If a

Nervous habits also identified as body focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) are behaviors that occur repeatedly across situations and consist of undesired repetitive, manipulative, problematic and or destructive behaviors directed toward the body such as hand-to-head (e.g., hair pulling, hair twirling), hand-to-mouth (e.g., nail biting, thumb sucking), hand-to-body (e.g., skin picking, skin scratching), and oral behaviors (e.g., teeth grinding, mouth biting) and are often seen to play a role in emotion regulation and can arise during periods of heightened tension (Miltenberger,2005 ; Roberts, O’Connor, Bélanger, 2013; Woods & Miltenberger, 1995). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition, does

Relaxers weaken the hair because it breaks the bonds within the hair shaft and destroys the hair proteins in the process. Over time relaxers can weaken the hair significantly leading to breakage and hair loss. Relaxers may also burn the scalp resulting in immediate permanent damage or damage that occurs over time, also resulting in loss of hair and baldness. Relaxers may be a contributing factor and often times it is only a part of the problem as other practices are utilized in the styling of the already weakened relaxed hair to push it over the breaking point.

The disturbance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder (e.g., excessive worries, as in generalized anxiety disorder; preoccupation with appearance, as in body dysmorphic disorder; difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, as in hoarding disorder; hair pulling, as in trichotillomania [hair-pulling disorder]; skin picking, as in excoriation [skin-picking] disorder; stereotypies, as in stereotypic movement disorder ritualized eating behavior, as in eating disorders; preoccupation with substances or gambling, as in substance-related and addictive disorders; preoccupation with having an illness, as in illness anxiety disorder; sexual urges or fantasies, as in paraphilic disorders; impulses, as in disruptive, impulse control, and conduct disorders guilty; guilty ruminations, as in major depressive disorder; thought insertion or delusional preoccupations, as in schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders; or repetitive patterns of behavior, as in autism spectrum disorder).

One afternoon in college, I noticed my friend had cut his hair extremely close and there was a small bald spot near his widow’s peak. I asked about the haircut, and he said with no hesitation, “I have trichotillomania.” He said it in such a way that I should have known exactly what he was talking about. “Tricha-what?” I asked. “Trichotillomania. I pull my hair out.” I remember thinking that this was a really odd bad habit. Flash forward eight years and I find myself with an autistic student plagued by trichotillomania in my classroom. For my friend in college, it was just a weird habit that gave him a slight bald patch. For my student and his classmates, it is a noxious classroom disruption.

The anxiety (nervousness) of this disorder causes the individual to feel the urgent need to perform certain routines or rituals (compulsion) (Chakraburtty, 2009). For example, a person who has an unreasonable germ fear constantly washes their hands (Chakraburtty, 2009). The rituals are performed in an attempt to prevent or make the obsessive thoughts go away (Chakraburtty, 2009). The rituals that are performed are temporarily the person will perform the rituals again once his or her obsessive thoughts return (Chakraburtty, 2009).

One of the wildest symptoms is the over involvement in risk taking activities known as hyper-sexuality. If an episode gets worse people may begin to experience some symptoms that are just like some symptoms of schizophrenia. Including hallucinations, delusions, and severely wild thinking and reasoning patterns. This sometimes leads to the misdiagnosis of people with bipolar disorder as people with schizophrenia, sometimes episodes can even lead to unprovoked violence towards anything like objets and people they may or may not even know. During those manic episodes people usually wont even reconize exactly what they are doing at that time during an episode and wont really have any control over their own thoughts and actions. A hypomanic episode is just like a manic episode only a little less severe. The symptoms of a hypomanic episode include pretty much most of the same symptoms as a manic episode does, with a decreased need for sleep, fast racing thoughts and the occasional anger trips. However, those hypomanic episodes aren’t usually perceptible to others and do not lessen someones social, work, or family life in any really big ways. The people that are going through a hypomanic episode are usually upbeat and more pleasant than angry and need very little time to sleep

Trichotillomania, also known as trichotillosis or hair pulling disorder, is defined as an impulse control disorder characterized by the compulsive urge for people to pull out their own hair (Weiss, 2015). Trichotillomania occurs in two forms, conscious and unconscious hair pulling. According to information gathered from the most recent and accurate study for statistics of Trichotillomania, which was performed by group of TrichStop staff in 2013, two and a half million people who live in the United States of America have been affected by trichotillomania at some point in their life (TrichStop, 2013). The hair pulling disorder has many causes as well as several effects that occur to a person during and after the hair pulling disorder is active.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disorder that causes someone to have unwanted and troubling thoughts and repetitive behaviors (Lack, 2012). People may self-diagnose themselves to be obsessive compulsive. But people with obsessive compulsive disorder need to spend at least 1 hour daily on obsessive thoughts and rituals (Ellyson, 2014). This disorder is broken into two parts. The first part is obsessions, thoughts or images, and the second part is compulsions, the repetitive behaviors caused by the obsessions (Brakoulias, 2015). An example of obsessive compulsive disorder would be someone checking the locked door multiple times to reduce anxiety about forgetting to lock the door. On average 5% of the population has subclinical symptoms which are considered to be symptoms that are not disruptive enough to meet criteria to be diagnosed obsessive compulsive (Lack, 2012). Dropping what you’re doing to go back and check if your curling iron is unplugged is an example of a subclinical symptom. This paper will discuss what obsessive compulsive disorder is and provide a brief history. It will also include current treatments, suggestions on how to treat the disorder, and a summary.

Headache = Tumor. Cough = Tuberculosis. Mole = Skin Cancer. Such is the thought process of a hypochodriac. As defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV), hypochondriasis is an unrealistic interpretation of one's bodily sensations as abnormal, leading to the fear and belief that one has a serious disease (1). This preoccupation with having a serious medical condition is one of the somatoform disorders and may be considered more as a symptom than a disease. In fact, hypochondriacal symptoms often appear as a part of other mental disorders, including forms of depression or schizophrenia (2). For this reason, a close investigation of hypochondriacal behavior is necessary to

Obsessive compulsive disorder is a disease that many people know of, but few people know about. Many people associate repeated washing of hands, or flicking of switches, and even cleanliness with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), however there are many more symptoms, and there are also explanations for those symptoms. In this paper, I will describe what obsessive compulsive disorder is, explain some of the effects of it, and explain why it happens. I will also attempt to prove that while medication doesn’t cure OCD, it vastly improves one’s quality of life. Furthermore I intend to show that behavior therapy (cognitive based therapy) is another useful tool in helping a person to overcome their OCD.

In a general view, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is associated with obsessions and compulsions. The obsessions are recurrent thoughts, fears, images, ideas, urges, and doubts. Patients suffering from this disorder often go through fluctuating episodes of compulsion which are in response to an obsessive thought, such as arranging, touching, repeatedly checking on something, and recurrent hand-washing. The patient experiences repeated rise in anxiety from the obsessions, that compels them to indulge in their compulsions as a form of relief (Brown University, 2013). Most of the patients suffering