It is so easy to do. You sink into the sofa after a long day at work, switch on the TV and absent-mindedly start playing with your hair.

Examining it, tugging it, pulling the odd strand out. It becomes a habit. A bad habit.

But when does a bad habit turn into trichotillomania?

Tell someone you're pulling your hair out and they'll probably smile at the analogy. Show them the clump of hair you've scooped off the floor and the tufts and thinning patches on your head and they'll suddenly look a bit uneasy.

Trichotillomania is an obsessive compulsive disorder which compels a person to pull out either their hair, their eyelashes or their eyebrows. It's rarely talked about as most sufferers or "trichsters" as they are called, try to hide it.

Astonishingly, it affects one or two people in every 100 - which means there are potentially up to 4,000 people with the condition currently living in Brighton and Hove.

While yanking out even a small strand of hair is enough to make most of us wince, trichsters do it so often they feel no pain. They describe it as "soothing" and get a sense of relief every time they do it but nearly all report feelings of guilt and shame afterwards.

Irish heartthrob and Hollywood actor Colin Farrell is among the millions of people worldwide to have experienced the condition but while awareness is growing, there is still a lot of confusion and mis-information about the best way to treat it.

Binny Hawkett, 25, from Haywards Heath, suffered from the disorder for 15 years to the point where she was pulling her hair out every ten minutes.

Having managed to stop after a course of hypnotherapy, she now wants to raise awareness of the condition and encourage other sufferers to find the right kind of help.

Binny traces her obsession with her hair back to when she was young.

Her parents split up and when she was 11, she had to move out of the family home in Swindon to Peterborough with her mum and her mum's new partner.

She developed a mild form of the hairloss condition alopecia. Binny still isn't sure what triggered it and can only put it down to the anxiety of moving home and starting a new school.

Her hair began to fall out around the tops of her ears and the back of her head and because she had patches, she would help it along by pulling out strands of her hair.

Although it grew back and the alopecia only lasted six months, putting her hand to her head and pulling her hair had become a habit which increased every time she felt stressed or unhappy.

When she started her GCSEs, it got worse. Binny was desperate to do well and wanted to get into college to do performing arts. She wasn't predicted great grades and was terrified of failing.

"When I was 15 or 16, I really started pulling and that's when it became a really bad habit," she says. "I'd fiddle with an area at the crown of my head, then pull my hair out strand by strand over the course of ten minutes.

"I wouldn't pull out a whole area so it would go bald, I'd do it until there were tufts and then move on and do it somewhere else. Some parts of my head would hurt more than others. It wasn't painful enough for me to stop doing it but it hurt enough for it to feel like a stress release."

Although she had long, thick hair which hung just below her shoulders, her hair started to thin in places leaving her too scared and embarrassed to go to the hairdressers in case they noticed.

"You could see the tufts, I had patches all the time," she recalls. "I'd get paranoid and make excuses not to go to the hairdressers because I'd have to explain the short bits. I felt so ashamed. The hairstylist would spot it and say, 'What's happened here?' "I remember going red hot and having to say quietly, 'I pull my hair out'. I used to tie my hair back rather than wear it down so people wouldn't notice."

Her mum put it down to a bad habit. "My mum would notice me fiddling with my hair. She'd say, 'stop it' and tap my hand and I'd turn around and get annoyed - which is unusual for me because me and mum are really good friends. But the more she'd tell me not to do it, the more I'd sit there and think about it," she says.

When Binny passed her exams and went to college, she spent a lot of time on stage and the problem seemed to go away. She went travelling and her confidence restored, she got a job in London as a pole dancer and stripper before leaving to work in Majorca where she met her fiance, Neil.

They hit it off straight away and he asked her to marry him virtually on the spot.

But when she came back to the UK and moved to Sussex in the summer of 2002, her old habit came back to haunt her.

Living in a new place with no friends or full-time job, she hit a low point and started pulling out her hair again.

Whenever she had a moment to herself watching TV or driving, she would pull it out strand by strand.

"Watching TV was a big one," she admits. "I'd extend my arm and rest it on my other arm and it would just be conveniently there. I'd only stop pulling ten mins later, when my shoulder started to ache. If I was in the car, I'd have my left hand on the wheel and rest my right elbow on the door and do it again."

Although she had been pulling her hair out on and off since the age of 11, it wasn't until Binny reached her early 20s that she realised she had a problem.

"I began to notice bits getting shorter, my crown area was just a couple of inches long," she says. "I was doing it all the time and that's when I realised I couldn't do anything about it. I was pulling my hair out every ten minutes.

"I'd be able to scrape up clumps of hair off my desk and handfuls off the floor and show my work colleagues.

"I became more and more paranoid about the short bits and the more stressed I became, the more I'd fiddle with it. It got to the point where I didn't even know I was doing it.

"It felt like an addiction. I couldn't stop. I would pull strands out from the whole crown area of my head and I wouldn't feel a thing and because I couldn't feel any pain, it possibly led to me doing it even more. I ended up hating my hair and realised I didn't like myself very much either. The more I did it, the more I'd beat myself up for doing it. It was like a vicious circle."

Like most sufferers, Binny tried to hide her affliction and made an effort to comb her hair back in a high ponytail.

She even paid a friend £150 for hair extensions and although it helped in the short term, she says: "I knew I was just shadowing something that would only start up again."

Her mum noticed a change in her personality and became really worried.

Having always been a bubbly, outgoing person who had no inhibitions about stripping in front of strangers, Binny had become a shadow of her former self - withdrawn, depressed and terrified of being abandoned by Neil, her fiance.

"I'd go out on a Friday or Saturday night and drink a bottle and a half of wine all by myself," she recalls. "I'd get paranoid thinking he was going to leave me and go off with someone else. I'd see things that weren't even happening.

"We'd argue, I'd get upset and I'd rip pieces out of myself. I thought so little of myself. I'd look at myself in the mirror and think, 'you are ugly, you're putting on weight' and end up pulling more of my hair out. I got to the point where I was so down, I was negative about everything."

Binny's GP suggested a course of antidepressants and although she agreed, she knew it wasn't the answer to her real problem.

"I wanted to get to the core of the problem - not mask it with a tablet. I knew I wanted help, it was just finding the willpower to do it," she says. The turning point came when Neil invited her to a rugby dinner.

"I was so low at the time. I remember drinking too much, then yelling at his mum and arguing with him to the point where I actually hit him," she recalls.

"Although he always said he loved me whatever, it was then that I thought, 'I really do have a problem' and I started counselling."

As the months wore on and she continued with the counselling, Binny began to fiddle with her hair less and less and, a year later, she made a conscious decision to stop it completely.

Her fiance's mum had used hypnotherapy to give up smoking so Binny decided to look into it and see if it could work for her.

Hypnotherapist Andrew Spence, who treated Binny, immediately recognised her condition as Trichotillomania.

Having treated similar cases in the past, he focused on building her self-esteem with relaxation techniques.

Among other things, she was told to give herself a compliment every time she looked in the mirror and to make a mental note of compliments she had received during the day.

Binny found the process quite grueling. It forced her to be honest with herself and face up to her problems for the first time but after six "gutwrenching" sessions, she somehow managed to break the habit.

She says she now feels like her old self again - outgoing and confident.

Her mum has seen a huge difference and her relationship with Neil has improved so much they have set a date for their wedding.

Taking control of her life once again, she now works as an office manager by day and teaches pole-dancing during the evenings.

Having experienced first-hand the true sadness and helplessness Trichotillomania can bring, Binny is hoping other sufferers will be inspired by her story and seek the help they deserve.

"If you're willing to put the work into the sessions, you get results. I was very determined -I just wanted it so much,"

she says. "If you are suffering from the same condition, go and talk to somebody, get advice, because it does help.

"People see you pulling your hair out and think it's a bad habit, they don't realise how much of an addiction - and illness it is. There are hundreds of people out there doing it.

"When I say to people, 'I pulled my hair out' they say, 'Oh, yes, I fiddle with my hair'. I look them and say, 'No - I pulled it out.'"

Having overcome the hair-pulling compulsion Trichotillomania, Binny Hawkett hopes her story will inspire other sufferers to seek help Two in every 100 people actively and deliberately pull their hair out There are potentially 4,000 people with the condition in Brighton and Hove.

Nearly 20 per cent of hairpullers eat their hair or chew off and swallow the root ends This can lead to large accumulations of hair in the stomach and digestive tract.

What is Trichotillomania Trichotillomania is an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which compels a person to pull out their hair and in some cases, their eyelashes and eyebrows. It affects an estimated ten per cent of the world's population and usually begins at the age of 11 or 12.

OCD is a very serious condition which can have a huge impact on someone's life, causing them to lose their job or in extreme cases contemplate taking their own life.

Andrew Spence, a hypnotherapist based in Hove says: "A lot of the time people don't talk about it, they try and hide it because they feel embarrassed.

"It's very difficult to explain to a partner or friend that you pull your hair out.

"It's only when you do start talking about it that you realise other people have similar problems.

"If we all become more aware and understanding, people will be more prepared seek help and come out in the open."

Andrew says there is still a long way to go in terms of research and believes there should be more information and treatments available for hair pulling and other OCD's.

"Often people don't know where to go and who to see," he says.

"It would be great if the NHS and doctors were more open to other ways of treating it."

Useful contacts Andrew Spence (hypnotherpist) in Hove, call 01273 509793.