Good morning, world!
We do have it. Believe it or not, there IS effective treatment. Or, let me rephrase it more correctly – We now have treatment that is pretty darned effective. Problem is, it is hard work for the sufferer, and often uncomfortable. But – it does work. The other problem is few doctors know how to offer this treatment. But this is slowly beginning to change.
I’m in New York City at the moment, for several reasons. To attend the Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy’s annual conference, to give a one-day workshop, and to meet with various TLC members.
Yesterday, at the ABCT conference, I had the opportunity to attend the 5-hour institute on CBT for Trichotillomania and BFRBs presented by Martin Franklin, Ph.D. and Douglas Woods, Ph.D.. They are both true experts in the field, and esteemed members of TLC’s Scientific Advisory Board.
What was wonderful was to see the 40 or so doctors who had come early to sign up for this institute, paying an extra fee on top of an already expensive conference. To watch as they paid close attention to Doug and Marty, asking relevant questions, and having an obvious desire to offer better treatment to their clients.
What was also great was to watch how these two professionals presented models for treating both children and adults, with a lot of overlap, but also some real differences in approach, mostly due to developmental processes as the age groups have such different needs.
Both of them have written books , that are available on www.trich.org and I highly recommend them.
TLC trains professionals, with our Annual Professional Training Institute (PTI). The great news is we are in the process of developing a multimedia “Virtual PTI” that should be ready for distribution in the Spring of 2010.
What was interesting for me, was how my own view of the recovery process is somewhat different, simply because I have experienced it from the inside out. There were times in yesterday’s session where I could have clarified things, but didn’t want to butt in to the doctor’s process. Like how the urge changes internally over time. How it really does diminish, when one no longer “feeds” it with reinforcement or emotional power.
Which made me want to get home and work on my own book! Which I believe will help our community, and also help those that want to help us, by clarifying some of the things that you just cannot know unless you have experienced them.
Gotta get ready for the day!
Much love, Christina
6 Comments
I was one of the attendees at the ABCT workshop. It was extremely helpful and enlightening. It was quite interesting to find out just how effective the current psychological treatments are for this disorder.
Thanks for the encouraging info! I’m off to a psychiatrist tomorrow to talk about meds for my 10 year old. One of those “I’ll never do that” type of things. I’ll have a few more questions to ask her, and also to ask my daughter’s therapist. Keep up the good work!
This is great news to hear, and I also want to say that this website has been a large influence for me in dealing with trich. Especially the success stories and your blogs.
I want to ask, though, what exactly is this effective treatment you talked about at the very beginning of this post? Did you ever finish that thought, or did I just miss something?
Love your blogs, but very disappointed you don’t post more. Maybe you have no idea how inspirational you are to us trichsters. We know you are busy, but please. We need to hear from you, you are our hero, and we don’t have many of them.
Know what you mean, but you gotta remember she has a life too. She is so selfless and does so much for us fellow trichsters already, we all only have 1 life to live and even heroes want time for themselves.
But what is the treatment you spoke of????