Anti-beauty work and the perceptions of mental health in people with trichotillomania

• In Event: 2447 - Agency and Embodiment

Abstract

Hair loss related to mental illness is less acceptable or understood than that related to age or medical conditions. Hair loss due to self-induced pulling, for instance, may be interpreted by others as an overt sign of mental illness, leading to both public stigma and self-stigma. Research shows that when the public perceives an individual has a mental illness, persistent stereotypes of dangerousness are employed to make meaning of that individual, and increasing social distance is desired. When mental illness is combined with the violation of beauty norms, different perceptions of beauty and mental illness might be produced in which mental illness and unattractiveness become conflated. This can impact individuals’ self-esteem as they worry whether conventional unattractiveness is perceived as mental illness or vice versa. Using in-depth interviews with 32 individuals with trichotillomania (a hair-pulling disorder), I introduce the concept of “anti-beauty work” to describe the tension between desiring to be conventionally attractive and engaging in an activity that is counter to that desire. First, I discuss the race- and gender-based beauty work use to manage stigma. Second, I introduce the concept of anti-beauty work to explain the ways participants perceive their trichotillomania and how it relates to how others perceive them. I discuss how beauty work is used not only to improve physical appearance, but to mitigate the perception of mental illness. Anti-beauty work is used as a tool to understand how people who may not meet conventional beauty standards view themselves and how they worry others will perceive them by studying how stigma surrounding unattractiveness may interact with other seemingly unrelated stigmas, which may in turn maintain harmful ideologies and perpetuate inequalities in social interaction.

Author

• Andrea D Kelley, University of Delaware