GIRLS ON THE PULL

Channel 4 · TV Week · 15 Jul 2010 · by: Channel 4

As part of the First Cut strand, showcasing bold, bright and original documentaries by up-and-coming film-makers, Ruth Kelly directs Girls on the Pull , following three women who are on a quest to stop pulling their hair out. Hair is a multi-million-pound industry. It is a potent sign of femininity, sexuality and health. As a nation, we are obsessed with it: we preen it, cut it, style it, dye it and spend millions on it every year. Losing it can be devastating. Yet across Britain thousands of women are literally tearing their hair out. They suffer from trichotillomania, an impulse control disorder that causes people to pull out their own hair, often to the point of extreme baldness. This First Cut film explores the reasons behind this by meeting three women living with the condition who are desperate to get their hair-pulling under control.

For no known reason, 28-year-old Laura from London started pulling her hair out while on a family holiday when she was 14. Before she even realised it was a problem, the habit had taken hold and today Laura fights a daily battle not to pull her hair, using a blonde hair piece that hides the bald patches underneath. The damage is so extreme that she won't even let her boyfriend of over a year see her hair. For 22-year-old Mel, securing clip-on extensions every day can sometimes take hours, meaning she rarely leaves the house before lunchtime. But now that she has a son, Mel doesn't want him to grow up with a mother who looks "weird", and spending hours on her hair is no longer an option. Harriet's problem started when she was 10. Her parents were left feeling completely helpless and unsupported by doctors. They were not even aware that this condition had a name and, by age 17, Harriet was completely bald on top.

Fed up with their hair loss and with being misunderstood, these strong, bright and beautiful women allow the cameras to follow them on their journey to try and overcome their condition. While Laura uses a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy, hypnotherapy and sheer determination to try and stop pulling, the other women turn to the Lucinda Ellery Consultancy in London. Lucinda is one of the few specialists in Britain offering treatment to women with trichotillomania and set up the first clinic in the country to deal with female hair loss. Lucinda has a deep personal connection to hair loss from her childhood. She became determined to find an alternative solution aside from wigs and today this glamorous, bubbly blonde runs a bustling salon. She uses a form of intralace system, in which mesh and hair extensions are locked down over the damaged area to act as a barrier to stop women pulling. "It's the equivalent of wiring the jaw when you're trying to lose weight and it also gives them a full head of fabulous hair", Lucinda says.

It's not a cure-all, and alongside any external treatment women must learn to break the habit and find alternative coping strategies if they are to have a chance of keeping their hair once it has grown back.