What can we learn about ending compulsive hair pulling from ancient healing rites?

Long ago in cultures lost to us, “anyone who had suffered loss of health in any way was not treated with external remedies.  In most cases they were taken to the temple and put into a king of sleep.”  The distressed or ill would venture to the nearest temple where priestesses placed them into a deep trance-like sleep and brought on powerful healing.  The symbols of geometry and numerology were used in this work.

So, can art utilizing geometric symbols and numbers and other images help to heal trichotillomania?

Art therapists have long known that art can help us to shift things within the psyche.  Any tool that has the possibility to assist the process and doesn’t harm is worth a try.  Art that you create for yourself can help you to heal by bypassing your rational mind and “interacting” directly with the deeper levels of your being.  This deeper place is where healing must take place to be truly effective.  In simpler words, it can help you break through your stuck places.

The true healing journey is a creative process.

When trying to end trichotillomania, sometimes the healing process offers us the opportunity to walk through an invisible door into our future. The only problem is that by walking through this door it closes, even locks behind us. We cannot go back to the safety of the past. The future lies ahead, its path uncharted. There may be vast waves of grief and anger over what has been left behind. There may be fear or disorientation. We must regain our equilibrium. We may not remember the moment we made the choice to go through the doorway into greater freedom or why we chose it. But choose it we did and now we must continue forward into our healing, into a more expanded life.

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