Thanks, Perna, that's a really interesting article. Some of it sounds familiar from when I was in therapy, and some of it I do myself anyway. (I've taken to wearing a glove on my left hand when I'm studying or at the computer - as long as I'm by myself - which stops me pulling with that hand, at least...) Unfortunately I don't seem to have enough self-control to use a "habit-reversal response" that's less drastic than a glove, and I can't do that in public because I'd get all sorts of strange looks. But sometimes holding my USB stick in my left hand helps (it's got a cap that I can remove and replace with one hand - still repetitive but slightly better for my hand than pulling my hair out, and a bit more discreet), so I might be able to try harder with that and see if it works...

I'm back at work over the summer, might bring my USB stick there to try and control the hair pulling a bit (it got bad again last summer, which sucks because it's an open plan office so was probably fairly obvious what I was doing ) - will just have to hope they don't think I'm trying to steal company secrets. Tried a rubber band last year but it didn't work too well...