I have a client now who is suffering from Trichotillomania. It is basically a condition whereby a person starts pulling off hair from different parts of the body, especially from the head. It could be from eyebrows, eye lashes or from other parts of the body like limbs.

She is a 17 year old Junior College student. She is a referred client. A friend of mine who was a professional counsellor referred her friend's daughter to me after she tried counselling the girl and failed. The girl had also been seeing many doctors for the past few years and was on the verge of tears when she met me.

Recently I had a talk with two psychiatrists in private practice, Dr Ang Yong Guan (practising for more than 30 years) and Dr Chia Boon Hock in his 80's (claims to be Singapore's first psychiatrist who went into private practice). Both concurred that this condition is very hard to treat.

When I first met her, she had a bald patch the size of a cap on her scalp and there were red patches on the skin. I discussed with her that the fact that she was pulling her hair was probably because she was stressed, so the cause of the behaviour was possibly her anxiety. I also told her that we are going to discover the cause of the cause using hypnotherapy. Why was she feeling anxious and so stressed in the first place. What we found out was that she was a perfectionist and she was always worried about her grades and that she was suffering from performance anxiety. So we continued with the 5 PATH process as well as 7th Path. I also taught her some tools that she could use, for example I gave her practical tips to become very much aware of her hands, what they are for, to value and appreciate all that she can do with them and to become aware each time her hand moves towards her head, and how she could decide to place her hands elsewhere etc.

By session three, there was a great improvement. Her hair on her scalp was visibly starting to grow. Her mum was pleased and so was my friend who referred her to me. She had signed up for a total of six sessions. By session four, her new hair was longer and she was feeling happier. She still has another two more sessions to go.

The girl herself was very happy and referred her school friend to me too.

A person who was caught shoplifting (4 times) is now under my care so she can go to the root cause of her stealing habit and learn to overcome it. Her lawyer, a very senior lawyer of good repute, had requested for a therapy report which I promptly submitted - 11 pages. It will be submitted to a court of law for mitigation purposes. I think this is great for the development of awareness of hypnosis and hypnotherapy in Singapore! If I am not mistaken, this is the first time in Singapore that a hypnotherapist Therapy Record of a client will be submitted to a court of law. Let's see what waves it will cause!