A twenty-two-year-old woman entered treatment with the chief complaint of an uncontrollable impulse to 'pull out my hair and eat the roots'. She was severely masochistic with depressive and paranoid trends. Her mother had been savagely punitive and had shaved the patient's head when she was thirteen and on two later occasions. The mother had also caused a severe burn to the patient's head and ear by throwing hot grease on her. The overdetermination of the hair pulling and hair eating is discussed, and a brief review of the literature on the subject is presented.