Trichotillomania: Therapist Guide: An ACT-enhanced Behavior Therapy Approach Therapist Guide (TREATMENTS THAT WORK)

Abstract This book focuses on trichotillomania, a complex disorder that is difficult to treat and for which there are few effective therapeutic options. It provides a 10-session program designed to teach therapists how to help clients reduce their pulling, think differently about the internal experiences that trigger pulling, and learn to live a more valued life. It also promotes an approach that blends traditional behavior therapy approaches of habit reversal training and stimulus control techniques with a more contemporary approach based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Patients are encouraged to behave flexibly and in concert with their values whenever they face the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, urges, and cravings that often trigger the pulling. Emerging evidence suggests the treatment can be successfully applied to older children and adolescents and describes how the treatment can be modified for these populations. Trichotillomania (TTM) is a complex disorder that is difficult to treat and few effective therapeutic options exist. This Therapist Guide for the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Enhanced Behavior Therapy for Trichotillomania (AEBT-T), and the accompanying client workbook, is a 10-session program designed to teach therapists how to help clients reduce their pulling, think differently about the internal experiences that trigger pulling, and learn to live a more valued life. The approach blends traditional behavior therapy approaches of habit reversal training and stimulus control techniques with a more contemporary ACT-based approach. This ACT-based approach teaches clients to behave flexibly and concert with their values whenever they face the uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, urges, and cravings that often trigger the pulling. Since its original publication in 2008, AEBT-T has been studied extensively and shown to be effective in individual and group format using both face-to-face and telehealth modalities. Emerging evidence suggests the treatment can also be successfully applied to older children and adolescents, and this latest version of the manual describes how the treatment can be modified for these populations. Fully updated to reflect new research and organized in an easy-to-use session-by-session format with accompanying therapy support forms and materials, this intervention has proven efficacy and will be a valuable resource and powerful tool for clinicians who commonly treat TTM, OCD and related disorders. "Trichotillomania (TTM) is a disorder of secrecy and shame. Many with the problem do not know it has a name, and many who know what they have, cannot find knowledgeable providers. Research on the etiology, maintenance, and treatment of TTM has grown dramatically since this program was first published. Still, our understanding of this complicated disorder remains incomplete, and few effective therapeutic options exist. Behavior therapy still maintains the strongest empirical support (Farhat et al., 2020 ), having reliably outperformed medications in head-to-head, albeit small, efficacy trials. Unfortunately, the number of mental health providers familiar with TTM and its treatment remains limited. This therapist guide and client workbook were written as tools for therapists to become familiar with an effective treatment for TTM"-- Provided by publisher