As children, we are warned to leave alone any scabs on the scrapes and scratches we pick up while moving through life: “don’t pick at it” grown-ups say.
For millions of people, that urge to scratch, squeeze or pick their skin becomes overwhelming.
At best skin picking can lead to wounds and tissue scarring, at worst it can be part of a negative cycle of self-harm, low self-esteem and stress.
Hypnosis can help. As a qualified, certified Solution-Focused hypnotherapist, I can get to the core of why you are picking your skin.
I will give you all the tools you need to overcome the reasons behind it, enabling you to break your skin-picking habit once and for all.
What is skin picking disorder?
Excoriation (skin picking) disorder, commonly known as dermatillomania, is one of several disorders categorised as body-focused repetitive behaviours (BFRBs).
They also include hair pulling (trichotillomania), nail biting (onychophagia) and thumb sucking, lip and cheek biting, and eating hair or skin.
People with dermatillomania make a habit of picking at their face, back, shoulders and arms with their fingers, fingernails and teeth. They can even use tools such as tweezers, pins and scissors.
Many sufferers also focus their picking on their lips and gums, their scalp, stomach or chest, as well as their finger and toe nails and cuticles.
Skin picking and OCD


Research has shown that women are more susceptible to skin picking than men. No matter the gender of the sufferer, for some, their skin picking habit can be a result of boredom, stress or anxiety. For others it can be a repetitive form of self-soothing, offering short-term relief.
Although BFRBs such as skin picking can be closely related to behaviours on the obsessive compulsive spectrum, they are not necessarily the same.
Roughly 25% of people diagnosed with OCD or body dysmorphic disorder pick their skin as part of their cycles of behaviour.
Skin picking triggers
As with many aspects of dermatillomania, some people are aware of their compulsive skin picking, while others are not.
Some skin picking sufferers can spend hours in highly focused sessions of picking or scratching at their bodies.
Others with the habit may not even be aware they are doing it while reading, scrolling on their phone or watching TV. Some people even have the urge to pick their skin in their sleep.
While there can be many triggers for compulsive skin picking, from the search for perceived imperfections to an overwhelming urge to pick your skin, it often follows the same cycle.
A negative cycle
The satisfaction or pleasure derived from skin picking leads to physical effects including swelling, bleeding and pain. Some tissue damage may be irreversible.
This in turn prompts the emotional impact of skin picking: a sense of shame and self-consciousness that prompts social awkwardness or anxiety.
In the worst cases, skin picking can lead to profound self-criticism, a feeling of not being in control of their own actions and, in severe cases, depression.
The doom-loop can lead to more skin picking and the vicious circle begins all over again.
Ways to break the skin picking habit


There are several techniques people with dermatillomania can adopt that can help restrict or break their skin picking bad habit.
- Occupy your hands with fidget toys
- Moisturise regularly to prevent flaky skin
- Wear gloves
- Keep your nails trimmed short
- Wash your hands often to limit the risk of skin infection
As well as trying to physically prevent compulsive skin picking, it’s worth trying to identify what causal factors could be triggering your excoriation disorder bad habit.
They could include a disruption of common grooming behaviours, environmental factors such as a traumatic event, or even genetic predisposition, as BFRBs appear to run in families.
No matter what event or underlying anxiety is causing your skin picking, hypnotherapy helps you regain control.
Hypnosis and compulsive skin picking disorder
Like any bad habit developed as a coping mechanism for everyday life, whether it’s hair pulling, smoking or skin picking, there are ways to stop it.
Hypnosis helps people overcome their skin picking in several ways:
- Increases awareness of your hands and how skin picking operates
- Restores your focus control, enabling you to better deal with skin picking urges
- Helps identify triggering individuals or stressful situations
- Enables you to devise personalised, beneficial responses that work for you
- Swaps uncomfortable feelings or stress for calm and confidence
- Enables you to develop an immediate response if you unconsciously turn to skin picking
It can be hard for people who want to stop skin picking, because it’s something they do without even thinking. How can you prevent yourself from doing something that happens unconsciously?
Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are proven ways to disrupt the vicious cycle driving your urge to pick at your skin, because hypnosis speaks directly to our subconscious mind.
How hypnosis treatment works for a skin picking habit
Hypnosis helps people break their bad habits in several ways.
By placing patients into a state of deep relaxation during a hypnosis session, I can access their subconscious mind and discover any issues linked to the skin picking, without causing any additional stress and anxiety.
Once the triggers behind their anxiety have been identified, I use habit reversal training to make you aware of the negative effect or unpleasant impacts of skin picking.
That can cover everything from the desire to have perfect skin to a sense of shame or anxiety over any visible tissue damage.
Help with other harmful behaviours
As well as increasing awareness about when you pick your skin, hypnotherapy treatment can help patients overcome other harmful behaviours or better deal with their emotional responses to stressful events.
Hypnosis makes patients feel calmer, reducing their stress and anxiety levels and therefore minimising the skin picking compulsion.
It is instrumental in helping them break free of a negative picking cycle, reducing their feelings of shame and improving their overall quality of life.
How fast does hypnotherapy work?


My Solution Focused approach can help you stop skin picking in just a few sessions.
Treatment begins with a free, roughly 30-minute Zoom consultation during which I find out all about you, potential causes for your skin picking, and what you want to achieve via hypnotherapy.
During the sessions, while you are in a deeply relaxed state, I will give your subconscious mind all the tools it needs to nip that familiar urge in the bud and overcome your skin picking.
Testimonial
Some habits, like skin picking, can be really difficult to break, and require more than everyday determination or a bit of will power.
A client who came to me for help with quitting smoking is a good example of how, even if it’s something we know is harmful or bad for us, we can be drawn back to negative behaviours.
He said he was “tired of gearing myself up to quit again and again” but by targeting his subconscious mind in my hypnotherapy sessions, hypnotherapy helped him to break “whatever associations kept drawing me back”.
Contact me
I’m ready to help you move past any conscious or subconscious issues driving you to pick your skin, and set you free from any sense of shame or feelings of anxiety.
You can find me at Cambridge-based Salus Wellness Clinics on Thursdays and at Coach House Health Care on Fridays. If you would like to find out more about how hypnosis can help you overcome your skin picking habit, book your FREE initial consultation here.