In this instructive contribution nineteen cases of hair pulling, with marked preponderance of adolescent girls, are examined. Some common findings include denial of symptoms and a family constellation of a critical, ambivalent, hostile mother and an ineffectual father. Psychodynamic formulations stress the multidetermination of the symptom in terms of psychosexual levels, problems of identity and unconscious conflicts, all of which were aided by the plastic suitability of hair to express unconscious symbols.