ABSTRACT
Hair-pulling is a behavior that has been described since antiquity. The Bible includes a passage in which the prophet Ezra pulls out his hair, and Homer, Shakespeare, and many others have written about hair-pulling in the context of frustration or grief (1). Such depictions are arguably consistent with the symbolic value of hair; hair classically denotes beauty and power, so that loss of hair correspondingly signifies a range of themes involving aggression and sexuality (2).
