ABSTRACT
Let us begin with Andrea’s story. This twelve-year-old girl was in Year Six at a primary school where I often worked. Some months before I met her, her hair had begun to fall out in chunks and she had developed a habit of pulling it. There were now some bald patches on the side. On the top it had regrown like a spiky crewcut. The medical experts who had examined her believed that her condition (alopecia) was psychosomatic, hence my involvement.
