You keep doing something you want to stop

Understanding BFPAs™

When A Behavior Becomes More Than A Habit

I specialize in helping people transform Body Focused Process Addictions™

You Keep Doing Something You Want To Stop.

Maybe you pick your skin, pull your hair, bite or pick your nails or cuticles, or engage in another body-focused behavior. You may have tried to stop many times. You may even understand exactly what you're doing and still find yourself doing it.

If this sounds familiar, it doesn't mean you're weak, lacking willpower, or failing at recovery.

There is a reason the behavior keeps happening.

I specialize in helping people understand and change Body Focused Process Addictions™ (BFPAs™)—behaviors that can become deeply reinforced ways of responding to stress, anxiety, boredom, loneliness, sensory discomfort, emotional pain, or simply the need for relief, stimulation, or soothing.

What I help you do.

The goal isn't just to make the behavior stop. It's to understand what the behavior has been doing for you and develop new ways of responding to urges, emotions, sensory needs, and difficult moments.

You Are Not Failing. There Is a Reason This Is So Difficult.

One of the most frustrating things about a BFPA™ is knowing you don't want to do it and doing it anyway. These behaviors can become automatic because the brain learns from what provides relief, comfort, stimulation, or satisfaction. Over time, the behavior can become a familiar response to particular emotions, situations, sensations, or environments.

That doesn't mean you have no control.

It means learning to recognize when the behavior starts to take over and finding ways to create more choice in those moments. It means learning to notice when the urge begins to narrow your choices and finding ways to create more space to respond differently.

What is a BFPA™?

A Body Focused Process Addiction™ is a behavior that has become more than a habit. It has become part of a learned cycle involving urges, reinforcement, emotions, sensations, thoughts, and the nervous system.

Skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, cuticle picking, and other body-focused behaviors can serve different functions for different people. They may provide temporary relief from anxiety or overwhelm. They may help with boredom or restlessness. They may provide sensory stimulation, comfort, satisfaction, or a feeling of being “just right.”

Understanding the function of the behavior is an important part of changing it.

Treatment Begins with Understanding

I don't believe that the answer is simply to tell yourself to stop.

Instead, we become curious about what is happening before, during, and after the behavior. Together, we may explore:

What Triggers the Urge?

What is happening emotionally, physically, or environmentally?

What Does the Behavior Provide?

Relief? Stimulation? Comfort? Escape? Soothing? A sensory experience? Something else?

When does the behavior become automatic?

Learning to recognize the sequence earlier can create more opportunities for choice.

What makes you more vulnerable?

Stress, exhaustion, loneliness, boredom, emotional pain, sensory needs, or other experiences may all play a role.

What can you do instead?

We develop additional ways of responding that fit your needs and your life.

The goal is not perfection. It is greater awareness, flexibility, choice, and self-trust.

Why I Specialize in BFPAs™

I've spent more than two decades working with people struggling with anxiety, OCD, trauma, and body-focused behaviors. Over the years, I became increasingly aware that many people experiencing these behaviors needed more than an instruction to simply stop.

I wanted to better understand why these behaviors become so compelling, what keeps them going, and what people may actually be getting from them.

This work led me, together with my colleague Chaille DeFaria, to develop the Body Focused Process Addiction™ model as a broader way of understanding and treating these behaviors.

My work today draws on my clinical experience as well as behavioral, cognitive, mindfulness, acceptance-based, and nervous-system approaches.

Most importantly, I want clients to understand that there is nothing inherently wrong with them because they have developed a behavior that has become difficult to change.

The behavior is the problem. It is not the person.

You Don't Have to Figure This Out Alone

Changing a deeply reinforced behavior can take time. You don't have to have everything figured out before reaching out.

We can start by understanding what is happening, what you've tried, and what you're hoping will change.

Together, we can begin to understand the behavior with curiosity rather than judgment and work toward having more choice in how you respond.

Schedule a Free 15-minute Consultation]

Not sure whether treatment is right for you? We can talk about what you're experiencing and see whether my approach may be a good fit.