Ep. 232: Dr. Marla Deibler — Hope for Healing from Hair Pulling, Skin Picking, and Other Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors

My guest this week is Dr. Marla Deibler, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating anxiety. We discussed her excellent new book, The BFRB Recovery Workbook (affiliate link). Check out the publisher’s website where you can download many free worksheets and resources.

Topics we discussed included:

• When a body-focused repetitive behavior becomes a diagnosable disorder
• Common physical consequences of BFRBs
• Behaviors associated with the hair-pulling of trichotillomania, a type of BFRB
• The buildup of hair in the digestive system (trichobezoar) from ingesting hair
• What makes BFRBs so hard to stop
• The rewarding feeling that often accompanies BFRBs
• Fixing something with a BFRB that doesn’t feel quite right
• Why willpower alone is usually not enough to stop BFRBs
• Ambivalence in the process of change: wanting to change and not wanting to change
• The importance of a functional analysis to understand what drives behaviors
• Wanting to jump to fixing a problematic behavior before understanding it
• The importance of awareness for treatment
• Practicing incompatible responses to interrupt the habit of BFRBs
• The relation of BFRBs to OCD and other types of compulsive behaviors
• The important role of acceptance and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• The problems of using punishment to shape behavior

Marla W. Deibler, PsyD, ABPP, is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Board-Certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology, and Founder/Executive Director of The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia.

Marla serves on the Faculty of the Behavior Therapy Training Institute (BTTI) of the International OCD Foundation.

She serves as President of the Board of Directors of OCD NJ, the NJ affiliate of the IOCDF, Consultant for the New Jersey Center for Tourette Syndrome, Visiting Clinical Supervisor at the Rutgers University Psychological Services Clinic, and Executive Council member of the ACBS OCD SIG.

She is co-author of The BFRB Recovery Workbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Effective Recovery from Hair Pulling, Skin Picking, Nail Biting, and Other Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors.

Find Marla online at her website.