Body focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) is a compulsive disorder in which you do something with your body. For example, you're a terrible nail biter. Constantly picking at your skin and pulling your hair out of your head is also something you just can't stop doing, even though you're balking at the results it has on your appearance. Between 14 and 60 percent of adults suffer from compulsive behaviors focused on the body, but how do you stop this?
What is body focused repetitive behavior?
BFRB is behavior that means you compulsively do something to your body. Nail biting, picking at your skin and pulling your hair out of your head are some of these behaviors. These behaviors can prevent you from functioning well socially or emotionally, and you may even be so busy doing it that it undermines your productivity.
Most people don't suffer from this, but if you find that your pulping behavior is causing you to be unable to process emotional events properly or do everyday things, you do have a little problem.
Typically, BFRB is treated when it compromises your physical health, such as when you completely break your skin or when it really severely affects your quality of life. BRFB is often chronic and can recur throughout your life, even after treatment. So it is a fluctuating condition.
What causes BFRB?
Compulsive behaviors related to the body can be genetic. Research shows that people who suffer from BFRB often have immediate family members who also do so[1]. There are also other factors that come into play, such as character traits, your environment, family stress and age of onset.
Many people think this behavior is the same as self-mutilation or that there is often a deeper problem that needs to be solved. This deeper problem is sometimes a cause, but it has not been scientifically proven that a deeper emotional problem and BFRB are linked.
In doing so, it is also not a way for people to punish themselves like many people who engage in self-mutilation. However, it is a way for people to get satisfaction from feeling and reduce stress.
What treatments are available for BFRB?
Currently, BFRB is primarily treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and ways to stop the behavior. Initially, if you suffer from this, the idea is to become aware of it in the moment you are dealing with it. For this, mindfulness, for example, can be used. Mindfulness is also used to stop the compulsive behavior and in addition there are other ways to change the compulsive behavior.
For example, if you are a pulker, you are encouraged to ball your hands into fists or place them in your lap when you get the urge to pulker. Therefore, it is important that someone close to you then compliments you for this so that you get a positive experience when you do not give in to the compulsive behavior in the first place.
Keeping a journal to find out compulsive behavior triggers is also recommended. When you become aware that you are engaging in your compulsive behavior write down when it happens, what you were doing and what you were thinking about. By keeping track of this for a while you will naturally start to see a trend if it is certain behaviors or thoughts that cause those fingernails to just never get a little long[2].
This also allows you to notice if it is boredom or stress that causes you to pick, bite or pull. Annoying emotions and thoughts can also be identified as triggers and then the key is to learn to deal with these emotions and annoying thoughts in order to get rid of them not through compulsive behavior but through a healthy thought pattern and acceptance of these types of annoying emotions. Everyone suffers from them.
Can hypnosis help?
Hypnosis can certainly help you suffer less from pulling your own hair, nail biting and picking at your skin. In fact, hypnosis has an effect on reducing stress and it helps change behavior.
If you've been keeping your journal to figure out triggers and find out that stress, boredom or certain emotions are causing you to compulsively do something with your body, that's something hypnosis can help with. This is because what you do when you are bored, stressed or suffering from certain emotions has to do with your beliefs about how the world works.
Emotions and stress are reactions you have to events and how you interpret them through those beliefs. Hypnosis can help you identify and change unconscious beliefs so that you either suffer less from the emotion or suffer less from stress. In the process, it can also help you deal with boredom in a different way.
There are several ways hypnosis can figure out those beliefs. The most common way is regression. With regression, you go back to the moment when your subconscious created a belief that now causes you to suffer from compulsive behavior with your body during certain events or emotions.
Because many beliefs originate in childhood, those beliefs need not be logical. By giving you this insight, much can already be done to reduce BFRB.
Less stress through relaxation
Relaxation exercises are also recommended to reduce the compulsive behaviors that lead to nail biting, picking or hair pulling. Hypnosis often begins with relaxation, and that relaxation can be deepened with a guided visualization of a nice place or symbols that make you feel good.
Initially, you relax with hypnosis by paying attention to your breathing. You gently breathe in and out through the abdomen. Next, you relax your muscles. This can also be done with a mindfulness body scan, and muscle relaxation can also be guided by the hypnosis expert. You then, or while relaxing the muscles, also close your eyes. This ensures that you are not distracted during the guided visualization.
In that visualization, the hypnosis expert helps you imagine a place where you relax completely and how some elements in that place help you experience deeper relaxation. Heat from the sun can be used through this, but other symbols can also be important during such a guided visualization. Such as fresh water or energy or certain colors that remove negative energy from your body and bring that positive energy. For this, the hypnosis expert will first have a conversation with you to find out important symbols in yourself to use in the guided visualization for relaxation.
Hypnosis to change behavior
Hypnosis is used in multiple circumstances to change behavior. For example, hypnosis can help with smoking cessation and even drug addictions. So hypnosis can also help with these compulsive behaviors.
In the case of addictions, hypnosis makes the addictive behavior something you find repulsive, causing you to quit. Because addictions are often also a way to suppress stress and negative emotions, this can also help with compulsive behavior.
Another way hypnosis can help reduce BFRB is with post-hypnotic suggestions. These suggestions are a type of command for the behavior you have after hypnosis. For example, it encourages you to perform replacement healthy behaviors when you normally go back to picking.
Usually the post-hypnotic suggestion is given after a guided visualization. For example:
"You're at work and you have to meet with your supervisor soon. You are reading up and normally before you know it you are biting your nails again. This time, while you're reading, hold your hands in fists on your lap and deliberately relax them every so often. This will keep your nails beautiful and because you are busy relaxing you are more relaxed and confident during the interview."
This is just one example of post-hypnotic suggestion. Depending on your compulsive behavior, cause and solution to deal with it in a different way, the post-hypnotic suggestion may differ.
The some hypnosis techniques you also get to take home. For example, suggestions and guided visualizations are often recorded so you can listen to them at home during self-hypnosis. This enhances the effects of the hypnosis sessions and keeps you effective longer.
Want to learn more about exactly how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to the free online master class where you will learn the basics of hypnosis.
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Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
Sources:
[1]https://www.bfrb.org/learn-about-bfrbs/treatment/causes-of-bfrbs
[2]https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/touchy-subject/201903/how-treat-body-focused-repetitive-behaviors
