Woman's Hour - Trichotillomania, Singer-songwriter Olivia Dean, Sexual harassment in schools

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Trichotillomania is often referred to as “hair-pulling disorder”. There is little research in this area, but statistics suggest 1.1m people in the UK could have the condition, with 80% of them women. Half of those never seek treatment. What exactly is it? Why do people do it? And what can be done to help them stop? Clare MacKay is Professor of Brain Imaging at Oxford University. She joins Nuala to share her personal experience for the first time, and discuss the academic review she is doing in this area.According to a report by the Commons' Women and Equalities Committee, sexual harassment and sexual violence continues to be a scourge in schools, with many girls and women feeling powerless. The cross-party group of MPs is calling on the Government to focus on a specific strategy engaging boys in relationship, sex and health education lessons (RSHE) at school to help tackle the problem. Young singer-songwriter Olivia Dean, has collaborated with the likes of Loyle Carner and Leon Bridges, earning a reputation for her stellar live shows. She joins Nuala to discuss her recent Glastonbury performance, her inspirations and her debut album - Messy. 'Smoke Sauna Sisterhood' is an award-winning documentary which follows a group of Estonian women over seven years. The film artfully captures every bead of sweat and every inch of skin as the women reveal their innermost secrets. Nuala is joined by the documentary's director Anna Hints, and cinematographer Ants Tammik, to discuss why they chose to capture such an intimate ritual.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Alex Webb

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Due to copyright reasons, the performance has been removed. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. An inquiry led by the Women and Equalities Committee is calling for a new relationships, sex and health education strategy to engage boys and to tackle sexual harassment in schools. The MP Caroline Noakes from the committee will outline why she thinks it's

necessary and will also speak to those working in schools, and they're working in them now, to try and change attitudes towards women and girls. I'd like to know, what do you think could help change attitudes and reduce sexual harassment in schools? Is targeting boys the way forward? Some of you are getting in touch already.

Somebody says it needs to happen in homes first. By the time boys get to school, it's too late. Do you agree? 84844 is our text number on social media. We're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us on our website. For WhatsApp or a voice note, that number is 03700

100 444. Also, Olivia Dean, singer-songwriter. You might have called her at Glastonbury. Well, you can catch her in the Woman's Hour studio this hour. We are all set up to listen to her perform. We'll also talk about

trichotillomania or trich. This is when someone cannot resist the urge to pull out their hair. 80% of people who do it are women. We're going to hear from one woman who is researching it

and she'll also speak for the very first time about her experience of it. And we'll hear how getting hot, sweaty and naked can also lead to revealing innermost secrets. It's all in an Estonian documentary called Smoke, Sauna, Sisterhood. That's also coming up.

But first, sexual harassment and sexual violence continues to be a scourge in schools with many girls and women feeling powerless that is according to that report by the commons women and equalities committee the cross-party group of mps is calling on the government to focus on a specific strategy engaging boys in relationship, sex and health education lessons called RSHE. And they want them to take place at school and help tackle that problem. The committee also recommends that RSHE be made compulsory in sixth forms and colleges. A little earlier this morning, I spoke to Caroline Nowick's MP, Chair of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee and I asked her why boys seem to be the focus of this report. What we heard in particular from

experts working in the field is that too often young men feel that RSHE is targeted at the girls, that it's not relevant to them, they don't feel engaged in it. And we know that young people at whatever age are exploring their own identity, their sexuality, they're discovering relationships with their classmates. And we want that to be done safely, respectfully. We want young men as well as young women to feel the RSHE is an important subject for them all. So what are you seeing then that tells you that boys are not engaging with it or that it's not working, quite simply? We're seeing horrific evidence of 90% of young girls reporting to Ofsted back in 2021 that they'd received unwanted sexual images. My colleague, Jackie Doyle-Price, who led the subcommittee in this spoke in Westminster Hall about a visit she'd done to a school where every girl said that they had experienced unwanted

sexual harassment, unwanted touching. And we know that this is impacting their education, it's impacting their self-confidence, both when they're young and in later life. And it's imperative that schools address this head on. They can't turn a blind eye, they can't pretend that somehow their establishment is immune to this. This is impacting every single school. Do you think they have previously turned a blind eye? Well, certainly that was what Ofsted found, that schools were effectively in denial. Now, we saw from the Everyone's Invited movement, and I think it's absolutely crucial that we pay tribute to those brave girls who started it and the thousands who came forward to speak of their

experiences. But we know from that, that this is endemic in our schools. And we know that too many schools have not been able to deliver high quality RSHE. So the government's review, I want to see it focus on the quality of teaching, making sure that our teachers are both properly trained and empowered and confident to deliver what is an incredibly difficult but crucial subject. And we will speak to the founder of Everyone's Invited a little bit later. But you do bring up some issues there. You're talking about teachers being trained. I mean, what would this strategy look like? How would it be taught? It feels a very complicated, high level of teaching to engage with boys and to not have them shamed or put on the spot, which came up on the report. How do you do that? Well, you're right to point out that it's incredibly complicated and high

level. We spoke to experts working in the field, organisations like Tender Education Arts, to ask them specifically how should this be done. They had a view that it should be down to training teachers better, but potentially bringing in outside experts. That sometimes is the most effective way to address this subject. But the government, the DfE itself, is currently carrying out a review into RSHE. This could be their opportunity to recognise the crucial importance of the subject, to recognise that too many young people in our schools are subject to this sort of horrible sexual harassment, inappropriate touching, unwanted images,

and recognise that it's a subject that needs to be invested in. Paul Whiteman, the General Secretary of the Schools Leaders Union, the NAHT, said the issues outlined by the committee reach far beyond the school gates, and the onus cannot just be put on schools to solve. I think he makes a fair point. And this is, for want of a better phrase, this is on all of us it's on us as parents it's about making sure that we have uh really robust conversations with our own children it's about society it's why i've long been calling for public sexual harassment to be a specific crime there is a real cultural problem where and all too often it is women who are the victims of it, where women are expected to accept a misogynistic lads culture that demeans, belittles us and treats us as if we are there as sexual playthings. And this is a whole society problem and one that I think the solution starts with education. It starts with addressing the cultural stereotypes that are still too prevalent. But he's right to point out teachers can't do it alone.

But I suppose if we get down to the classroom, for example, do you have an idea of what should happen when there are so-called low level incidents of sexual harassment? They're often overlooked at this point because they're not criminal. I mean, how do you hold a child accountable in those incidences? Our bar cannot be whether something is actually criminal. We recognise inappropriate behaviour. We know that language can be as demeaning as physical touching. And it's imperative that schools have in their toolkit appropriate measures and techniques to explain to children what is and is not appropriate to explain to children how important it is that they respect their own bodies as well as their classmates bodies and I think this is about empowering teachers to be confident teaching I, one of the most important and hardest subjects to teach. There is also in the report, you're calling on the government to extend teaching for RSHE beyond 16 years of age. Why is that important? And is that for boys and girls? Well, absolutely. It must be for boys and girls. But we have mandatory RSHE up until the age of 16.

But many years ago now, the government decided that young people needed to be in educational training up to the age of 18. RSHE stops two years before the vast majority of young people will have finished their education. So we think it's imperative that they're not just taught about the theory behind it when they are younger teenagers, but actually at a time where many of them will be experiencing their first relationship, it's crucial that they be given safe spaces to talk about it. And I think that that can be in the classroom. And we come back to the classroom again. I'm thinking about the teachers that would be involved in this.

In 2019, the government announced that schools would receive access to £6 million training and support package that was to assist in the rolled out of, or SHE, freedom of information requests revealed only about

£3.2 million was spent. The government said it was because funding was demand-led and not compulsory. So schools didn't take it up, perhaps in part due to the pandemic. But do you make it compulsory to teach in a certain way?

And will there be the funding to do that? And where are the teachers going to get the time? I think any teaching and any strategy needs to be evidence-led. I'm not the expert on this, but there are plenty of academics, of teachers out there who can guide any strategy in the right way. The government is currently undertaking a review of RSHE. I would argue now is the time to listen

to people like the Children's Commissioner, listen to the teaching unions, to experts working in the field and develop a strategy and a curriculum for RSEG that works. I've long said that the school day is far too short. I think it helps working mums most of all if you lengthen that school day. And to be quite frank, it is going to take investment. I would make it absolutely compulsory to teach this up until 18. But I recognise I don't have a magic wand. I can't provide the DfE with all the solutions. I certainly can't provide them with the funding. But I think it is absolutely evidenced by Ofsted, by everyone's invited, that there is a crisis in

this area. And we need to empower our young people to have strong and healthy relationships and not to be demeaning and belittling each other. How long should the school day be? Oh, I think that's a very difficult question. But what I'm very conscious of is that if you look at secondary schools across my constituency, many of them are out way before three o'clock in the afternoon. And I certainly think that they're perhaps missing out on those enrichment elements of education that we know young people really benefit from. Let's get some reaction to what Caroline Noakes,

Chair of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, had to say. Maybe you're a teacher in the NEU, maybe you're striking today in England and you'd like to respond to all of it. Also about using a longer day and teaching some of these issues at that time. Our number is 84844 if you'd like to text us.

Joining us now on this conversation is Michael Conroy, founder of Men at Work, a training company for teachers, youth workers and social workers to help them have constructive dialogues with boys and young men about these issues.

We also have Sam Asara back with us, founder and CEO of Everyone's Invited, which started two years ago as an online community for survivors to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault at school. Thank you both for joining us. Samara, you gave evidence to the committee I saw. What do you make of the final report? We're really excited about the report and we're pleased to see the recommendations and we think it would be amazing if those recommendations were actually implemented. Ultimately you know this is a huge

problem and the Everyone's Invited testimonies have really shown this that this is everywhere, it's in all schools, it's a universal issue and it's really exciting and we hope that this is going to create a new momentum to encourage everyone school communities to address this. I mentioned why you set up everyone's invited for people to share their stories can you tell me a little bit what was the catalyst for you your experience and whether that you still see it replicated now in schools. Yes, I set it up after many conversations with friends. And in these discussions, we realised just how many of us had experienced sexual violence and harassment and misogyny and abuse. And these were particularly happening during our teenage years

and some of the most formative and vulnerable years um and I don't think we really had the language or the confidence to articulate what was happening to us or really challenge it and I think when we did try we were invalidated and shamed and not believed and I I decided to share my story on Instagram when I was finishing up university. And I was immediately inundated with messages and stories from my community and from my peers, all reaching out to tell me how much they resonated with those experiences, with the idea of a rape culture, with this idea of misogyny and attitudes leading to the behaviours to the experiences of rape culture and sexual violence and assault. So what is being

called with this report is really specifically engaging boys so let me bring you in Michael. I'm really curious you've talked to hundreds of boys over the years. What are they saying from their point of view? Because Sama and what she's set up has become more known, definitely, but it hasn't stopped what I'm hearing so far, the attitudes, the sexual harassment within schools. No, it hasn't stopped it, but certainly did something fantastic in bringing it to the head of the national agenda. So I'd like to thank SOMA for that work. It's absolutely invaluable. But unfortunately, the issues go on.

And every day I train teachers in secondary schools and FE colleges, sixth form, to have the confidence to have these conversations. Everything that is in the report, I was just nodding along with all of it. Also asking myself, will there be the money to fund this? Will teachers have yet another expectation put on them, but without the time

and the funding for the training? Because it's absolutely true that it's full of great recommendations, but I guess now we're in the space of political will. But I want to go back even one step further, Michael, and forgive me for interrupting you. Because you are speaking to those boys, what are they telling you?

We're seeing the result of what is happening, but I'd like to kind of go back to where it begins. Yes. Well, boys are in the midst of a bombardment of messages from porn, from gaming and from that kind of world of the influencers, people like that guy whose name I really don't want to say anymore, the one who's in the room. as a propagandizing machine for boys and young men so that they are bombarded with really risky, dangerous beliefs and values. They're being invited to feel aggrieved, certainly by bad faith actors. And that sense of grievance or of being under attack, that's quite prevalent with a lot of young men. Let's dig into that a little bit deeper, because I think for a lot of our listeners, like what are they aggrieved about?

Absolutely. It's a good question. And I think ultimately that sense of grievance is manufactured and it's not based on reality. some of which are really deeply historically kind of rooted in terms of popular culture, in terms of literature and music and art, that they should be in a position of power in their relationship, that they should be the one who gets the last word, that they should have access to women for sex whenever they want, and also have kind of material wealth. That's a really dangerous cocktail. And what age are we talking about, Michael? Forgive me for interrupting you you but it is fascinating no from the fall from the moment

they're born at the moment we're born we are exposed to messages which are directed to us as men and boys in the same way that women and girls are but they're different they are mutually kind of supportive ideas you've got one set of kind of cultural masculinity, if you like, and femininity, and they're kind of designed to support each other, but actually they're not in the interests of males and females, men and women. So from the moment a boy is born,

he's shown the way to be by multiple kind of sources of influences. And the training that I offer is to support teachers, youth workers, mentors, to engage in that dialogue with boys on the basis that they didn't invent this. They've been invited to take it up as a way of being. And I will say it is some boys, of course, unfortunately. Go ahead.

All boys are invited. It's a blunderbuss approach. It's like tv films internet they're not discriminatory they are for all of us all our nursery rhymes and our fairy tales things like that so it's for everybody and we respond differently of course some of us um some men reject it entirely some kind of go along with it a bit some but navigating that space with boys compassionately and respectfully but very frankly as well and i hear what was mentioned about shame i mean i work with domestic abuse perpetrators as well as during the training and the notion of shame is very

complicated because sometimes actually we need a creative discomfort. And shame is a noun, something you feel that you don't want to repeat and you want to move away from is not a negative thing per se. But if we're pointing the finger and saying, well, why are you doing what you do? Why do you think what you do? Why are you so bad? Then clearly that is not a positive approach. And what we want is what works. Yes. And we're trying to get to that.

And I'm really curious to hear how you try and combat incel or misogynistic views that are so popular online. But, you know, a lot of people have been getting in touch, Salma and Michael, and I want to read this one.

Talking about boys, because we're putting out to our listeners, you know, is a strategy necessary to target boys specifically. And this person says, I'm 55 and I have four friends of the same age across the country. Four out of five of us have had our sons accused of sexual assault. She puts that,

or he, in inverted commas, at school. This is endemic. All four boys have been cancelled and are suffering from isolation and further problems. Of course, genuine assault needs to be called out, but it is now out of control. A response from you, Michael, and a response from you, Sama. Well, that's one person with one anecdote. That's an unusual concentration because in most schools and most colleges, the vast majority of young men are never accused of anything.

So that's the fact, that's the evidence. You know, ONS stats would back that up. So to have an unusual cluster like that is an interesting case. But what about the concept? The concept that women and girls maliciously accuse boys of sexual assault I think is largely nonsense. The fact is that a man, this is a guaranteed fact,

a man is more likely, 230 times more likely to be raped by another man than to be accused falsely of rape. That's a fact in the UK. But the myth and the fact occupy different spaces on social media.

And unfortunately, social media is very good at generating and perpetuating myths. What about I mean the term sexual assault and as this person who got in touch says genuine sexual assault should of course be dealt with and people should be held accountable is there a grey area at the moment in understanding between boys and girls of what constitutes sexual assault? Is there, are there, for example, and I put this to Carolyn Oakes as well,

what should happen when there are so-called low-level incidents of sexual harassment that are overlooked as not to be criminal? But how do you hold a child accountable? Because one person is, I'll use the word aggrieved, but in the proper sense of something has happened to them and they want repercussions.

But for the school, can a child have made a mistake? They're probably two children in the same class. I mean, it's a tricky area. It is, and one that perhaps would merit a much further and deeper discussion and not something I can answer specifically, because I know that schools are often left in a real quandary because they can't exclude the alleged wrongdoer, perpetrator, whatever language they're used.

So often they come up with these incredibly complex ways of trying to keep the two children in the same school, but kind of opposite ends, like literally mapping out. That's a crazy situation. But then friends are involved as well. And it can take up to two years for something to come to court. And in that time, often, if the boy or young man, and it is almost always a male who is a perpetrator,

either against a female, which is overwhelmingly so, or perhaps another male. What's he doing? He's at home. What is he doing at home? Where's the work? Where's the support work? And likewise, another absurdity is that a girl or a woman who's been sexually assaulted cannot have proper trauma-reformed therapy because of the insane way that our legal process works is that they would

be seen as potentially being coached by a therapist I mean it's simply unacceptable it's an intolerable situation something for the department for education to really talk to some specialists there about how to manage disclosures of peer-on-peer abuse. And when we're talking about peer-on-peer, it is rather generic. When we're looking at the stats, a wonderful colleague who wrote a report on which the Children's Commissioner's recent report on porn, Louise Barraclough, a sexual health nurse, she's done in-depth research into the impact that it's stratospherically rising impacts of porn on male and female. Which I have to say, so many listeners have got in touch with that exact

point, the role of pornography within this. But let me turn back to you, Salma. There's a lot there. I'm curious about how you feel the strategy should be directed towards boys. I know Michael would be pushing for and there is a discussion about whether the education should be segregated. Do you think that would be useful? And also with your work summer in schools, how do you feel you could reach boys or reduce some of the issues that Michael was raising? I think this is such an important area. And from the very beginning, Everyone's Invited has always stressed the importance of engaging men and boys in positive and life affirming ways. We need to be compassionate. We need to be empathetic.

We need to be involving them in this conversation and in these discussions. And I think creating spaces in schools where we're really encouraging them to talk about these topics and to have a voice, to express what they think. It's so important that they're involved and that we're not isolating them. We're actually bringing them in. I want to read a comment to you because it's from Jo and she says, is anyone going to have the courage to say why do young girls wear such short skirts and make themselves look like young women with a very sexual presentation?

And what do they expect young boys to do? Why don't girls and their parents teach them something about modesty? I think trousers should be mandatory for all girls at school. And I mentioned that, Salma, to you just because this is some of the pushback that I'm hearing from my listeners. Yes, I think it's really important to highlight victim blaming and to say that, you know, women and girls, it's reported that they experience sexual harassment and assault in whatever they're

wearing, in whatever clothes, but if they're wearing a tracksuit or a miniskirt or their school uniforms. And that's what we're seeing that, you know, I was in a school just last week and they were saying how they are most often experiencing public sexual harassment when they're wearing their school uniforms. And that is very disturbing and so heartbreaking to hear from 14 year old girls. We shall continue this conversation. Michael Conroy, I want to thank you and also Sama Sara and also to Caroline Noakes who spoke to us earlier. We will continue the conversation tomorrow. We're going to be talking to Catelyn Moran. She has a new book called What About Men? And Catelyn will be speaking about what she says has gone wrong for men and the thing she says that can fix them.

So I will be tuning into that conversation on Women's Hour tomorrow. But thanks so much to my guests and to all of you who are getting in touch. I'll continue reading your comments throughout the program. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now, to trichotillomania, or trich, it's often referred to as a hair-pulling disorder.

There's little research in the area, but the statistics do point that 1.1 million people in the UK could have the condition and 80% of them be women. Half of those never seek treatment. So what is it? Why do people do it?

How can they be helped stop? Clare Mackay is Professor of Brain Imaging at Oxford University and she's doing an academic review in this area they be helped stop. Clare Mackay is Professor of Brain Imaging at Oxford University and she's doing an academic review in this area and she's sharing, I should say for the first time, her own personal experience of it. Clare, thank you for coming on and welcome.

Thank you and hello. Good to have you with us. I think this might be a new word, a new disorder that people haven't heard about before. So could you explain it? Yeah, so first of all, it's a pretty awful word. Trichotillomania is the formal diagnostic word for hair pulling disorder, but it's hard to remember, it's hard to pronounce. So I'll probably just refer to it as hair pulling disorder because it's much easier for people to understand what I'm saying. It is characterized by an uncontrollable urge to pull out your own hair, most commonly scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, but it can be from anywhere on the body.

And it's a form of disorder that's called a body focused repetitive behavior, another long and slightly mouthful of a term. Other examples are skin picking and nail biting. So these are all things that all of us do to a certain extent, but when they become to an extent that's causing you distress or it's uncontrollable, then it becomes disordered. People who suffer from these disorders often have quite a lot of distress and a lot of shame associated with the disorders. And if I may just come back to your quote of the 80 percent female. So it certainly is true that about 80 percent of people who find themselves in treatment trials or in support groups are indeed women but actually the population survey type work

that's been done leads to us questioning this and particularly in children it seems to be more 50 50 so it may be that there's a difference in terms of the experience of shame that means more women find their way into support groups and trials but it may be that it's not quite so stark in terms of the actual phenomenology. And Claire, I understand that you haven't spoken about it before. And thank you for coming to Women's Hour to do so. What has been your experience of it? Well, I started to pull out my hair, primarily eyelashes, initially when I was about 12 years old.

And I have continued to be unable to resist the urges to do that, eyelashes, eyebrows, and from my scalp as well, all the way until the last couple of years when I have sort of had a little bit of a personal breakthrough with it. And I can say that the disorder has caused me to essentially live with this sort of lake of shame around my inability to control these urges, which has kept me quiet about it. And I think that it's not an uncommon experience with people with these disorders.

But with the work that I've been doing on myself recently means that I'm sort of feeling like the shame is actually part of the problem. And the talking about it can really help both me and potentially other people with these disorders. As you said in your introduction, these disorders are probably a lot more common than we realize because those of us who have them are kind of masters of disguise

and will tend to be living in the shadows with our distress rather than feeling able to talk openly about it. How would you describe the urge? So I describe my urges in different ways. So for me, I can identify three different sorts of triggers. The first is probably the worst for me, the one to to to swat at something that lands on your arm. It's extremely powerful. It feels like an innate urge to to do this, to perform, to pull out a hair in my case. And those urges, when they come, they come in a kind of storm. You know, you can you can do your best to resist one urge, but the next one's right behind it. And then the next one's right behind that. So it's it's an incredibly powerful urge that's really difficult to to to to overcome. And often I and often I lose that battle.

The other the other types of urges that I get relate, first of all, to relate to sort of I think of these as being the emotional urges. So if I find myself, you know, ruminating or fretting or worrying about something, then that will often be a bit of a trigger for me to find myself pulling my hair out. And then the third type is maybe we could think of them as being more automatic. So they're the kind of, or related to boredom. So if I'm reading or driving or just not doing very much, I find myself often with my hands in my hair and, you know, one thing leads to another. And how do you feel after you've done it?

Perhaps it's a different feeling after those three types of triggers. I think that it's fair to say that there's a sort of very, very brief sense of relief when you, particularly in relation to those first type of triggers, the ones that feel sensory in nature. There is a sort of, oh, thank goodness, I've got that out. Now that feeling will go away. But the shame kicks in really quickly. So I sort of have an immediate sense of relief, followed by a kind of wave of

shame of, oh, God, I've done it again. And, you know, and all of the feelings that go along with that. So I think there might be a very brief reward, if you like, but yeah, it's soon overcome by the shame of having done it. Debs has got in touch. She says, I pull my hair and I'm so grateful this is on the programme today. You know, there's a couple of things that come to my mind. One, that shame that you talk about coming in and I'm wondering, is there a way not to be ashamed of it? Is there a way just to accept it?

But I am curious, what therapies have worked for you? So I sought therapy not specifically for trichotillomania. Actually, I just got to a point in my life where I was feeling sort of generally not quite as I normally do. And so went to seek some therapy to sort of find some inner peace, really. And trichotillomania wasn't the focus of that, but it was always there as an example of a sense of me not having inner peace. And my sort of my skillful therapist found her way to sort of through the layers, if you like, and to the to the kind of lake of shame that lived that lived at the core. And then and then there are kind of strategies that good psychologists can use to as interventions for shame. And so what I found is that having been through, maybe we could call it an unshaming process with my psychologist,

suddenly everything felt different to me. And so without the shame on board, you know, I am a neuroscientist and I've spent 30 years studying brains, but I've never really applied any of that knowledge to the disorder that's been with me all along. So suddenly I got interested in the disorder from a completely different perspective. And that really takes away more shame, you know, so it's kind of the more I talk about it, the more I think about it from a neuroscientific perspective, the less shame I feel, and actually, the less the behavior is there. So

I have a hunch, really, at this point, point it's not i haven't had a chance to test it yet but my hunch is that shame is actually a really important maintainer of these sorts of behaviors and that shame actually in itself creates the environment within our brains that makes us want to do the behavior in the first place it's so interesting we're talking about shame in a completely different um sphere in our previous item. Somebody else getting in touch here. Jules, your guest talking about Trick is incredibly articulate, putting into words exactly how I felt for 35 years. Here's another. I would 100% agree with Clare's characterisation of shame with Trick. I've been doing it since I was 14, 15 and now I'm 30. It's impossible to stop. If people see me doing it and call it out, I get really embarrassed. It comes on usually when I'm stressed or bored or my hands are free and I find a head hair that feels a certain way. I can't help but pull it out and it feels like a relief, but I can't stop. So obviously there are many that are

suffering with this and that's just in the past minute, three people have got in touch. Yeah. I mean, what would you like to see being done? Or how would you advise people to get help? Yeah, thanks. And those messages that come through, I mean, they're kind of heartwarming for me, because, you know, for so many years, I lived alone with my trick. And I think a lot of people live alone with their trick. And so every time I hear a message along the lines of, that's just exactly how I feel, it sort of, it reinforces my sense that we really have to do something about this. And so I guess I've got three groups of people that I'd like to answer your question in relation to. The first is the community that you've just been giving examples of so these are people with trichotillomania or their skin picking or nail biting disorders themselves

um i really want to say that you're not alone you know that this is a this is a disorder that you have it's not a character flaw it's not it's not something that you should feel ashamed about this is something that you cannot control and um and And the best way to start to reduce that feeling of shame is to find community. And the communities are out there. And I wanted to particularly highlight the Facebook support groups that I found enormously helpful, which are full of stories, just like the ones you've just read out. And if I may highlight one in particular, in the UK, the Body Focus Repetitive Behaviour UK and Ireland group have a Facebook group where you can be anonymous if you want to be at the start. And

they also run support groups that people can join in. So find community to help reduce your shame is my message to that group. There are so many messages that are coming in. Sorry, go ahead briefly if you need to. So the other two communities I'd like to speak to, one is parents and loved ones of people with these disorders who want the best for their loved one, obviously, but can often inadvertently, through their own fear and their own distress and their own shame associated with it, can accidentally add to the shame for the person suffering.

And so I really want to encourage people to get alongside their loved ones. And the last one? And the last one is my own community of mental health professionals, charities, researchers, etc. We need action. We need research. We need funding. We need to spend some of our resources understanding more about these conditions and starting to help people with them. I can't tell you how many messages have come in just in the time that you're speaking. I am going to read them all. Claire Mackay, thank you so much for joining us. I do want to let our listeners know there are also links to help and information on the Woman's Hour website. Thanks again. Now on Women's Hour, let us move on to the woman opposite me, the young singer-songwriter Olivia Dean. Hello. How are you doing? Really well. Great to have you with us. For our listeners that aren't as familiar with you, although many of them will be,

you've collaborated with the likes of Loyal Corner, Leon Bridges, you've earned a reputation for your stellar shows. And at the age of 24, you've already achieved three of your goals, I hear. All of them. Completely. I don't think all of them. I was reading an interview. I know you were at Glastonbury.

I was, yes. But your plan is to headline it. Well, exactly. That's the sort of bigger version of that goal. The smaller version was just play. And I did do that a couple of weeks ago. Was it now? God, losing track. Yeah, I know. I know. Woman's Hour was there, actually I did do that a couple of weeks ago. Was it now? God, losing track.

Yeah, I know, I know. Woman's Hour was there actually as well. Oh really, were you there? Not me, it was Anita Rani. Okay, next year we'll go. And they did, you know, maybe we just need

it even bigger next year. It was wonderful and they have to say that they were hearing the love and seeing the love, of course, that there was for you and so many of the other

performers there. But you have, I have to let our listeners know, released your debut album, Messy. Indeed, I have on Friday just gone. And yeah, I'm very proud of it. I'm very proud of it as a piece of work. And I, yeah, if you like music and good music for the soul, give it a listen, give it a go. Why is it called Messy? I think I quite enjoyed flipping the narrative of the word messy.

I feel like it's often used as quite a negative word. And in an age of people pretending to be perfect all the time, I thought it was quite refreshing to say, I'm a mess. My room is a mess. My life can be quite messy and that's okay. And maybe yours is too. And just, I don't know, I just enjoy embracing imperfections. I think complexity is the spice of life. So what was your musical background growing up? I've been singing since I was like eight years old. I was very shy as a child. So I really enjoyed musical theatre because it was like I was able to sing, but other people's stories, you know, I didn't have to talk about myself,

but I could still be, you know, a part of it. And then I just sort of just fell in love with music ever since then I've never wanted to do anything else and I started learning piano and guitar around 15 16 and writing my own songs and then now I've sort of ended up here on women's hour that's great and they were delighted to have you you went to the brit school I did indeed yeah did that help yeah I mean I was there for four years and it was the best thing I ever did because it just allowed me to really focus in on what I wanted to do. And I met all my best friends there and they're listening right now, my housemates. We always have women's hour in the kitchen.

That's what I like to hear. Let's go back to Glastonbury because we can talk about the time you performed when you're back on Women's Hour, when you're headlining. Yes, exactly. Yeah, OK. How was it? Again, it's something I've wanted to do my whole life. And I feel like it's such a stamp of legitimacy to play Glastonbury, and let alone play it not once, but three times. And then meet Elton John before his set.

How is that? I mean, surreal. It's Elton John, you know. I had 10 minutes with him and I got to sit down. What did you talk about? I mean, I can't really remember all of it, but he just said that he loved the album and that he thought I was going to be a big star.

And I said, how are you feeling for the show? And he said, you know, excited. And then I said, I won't keep you. Can I get a pic for my mum? And then I trotted off. And his, of course, everybody was tuning in to Elton as well. How wonderful. But, you know, all these things we're talking about

that you've done, Matt, Elton John, have your album out later with Jules Holland. You did that as well how wonderful um but you know all these things we're talking about that you've done Matt Elton John have your album out later with Jules Holland you did that as well you're 24 I am yeah I don't know what's going on really I mean I think I've been very dedicated to music for like most of my life so maybe that's got a part to play also luck I think you manifest as well I manifest yeah I think you have to be a bit delusional also to to do music in this way you just have to go I will headline Glastonbury I will and then you just sort of end up there maybe I love that thinking um you write your songs what inspires them um just people really I wouldn't say I'm a hugely abstract person I'm more interested in

small things you know human interaction turns of phrase, things people say to each other. And love. I love love and all different facets of it, you know, just not romantic, like friendship, the love I have for my family. Let me ask about that because one of the tracks on your album is called Carmen. Yes. So

this is probably the most proud I've ever been of anything I've created. And I hope it's a song that lives past me and my grandkids, because that's the crazy thing about music. My grandmother, yes. And she came over in the windrush when she was 18. Never been on a plane before from Guyana, yeah. And, you know, moved to southeast London,

worked in the police canteen and had my mum. My mum had me. And I just think, what a decision to make at 18. You know, I'm 24 and I my mum, my mum had me. And I just think, what a decision to make at 18. You know, I'm 24 and I'm like, I don't know if I could move alone to the other side of the world. I have a feeling you could. Maybe. It might be quite nice to go to the Caribbean, hey?

Now, you're going to be performing for us in just a moment, Dive. Yes. Tell us a little. It's just a love song. It's about giving over to love and letting yourself be loved like the leap of faith exactly

diving in giving your all to it let's hear it you're going to perform for us we have the studio ready for you you're accompanied

by Deschanel Gordon on keys and no I don't think you need them no you don't need them and Zin

Finn Zaffarino on bass. Lovely to have both of you in the studio as well. Olivia Dean. Yeah. Well, wonderful to have you all here. Best of luck with the album, Messy, your debut, which is out now. And thanks also to Deschanel Gordon on keys

and Finn Zaffarino. Olivia Dean. See you. Bye. Goodbye. Now, let me turn next to female friends coming together to share their innermost thoughts and feelings.

And you do it over a cup of tea or perhaps a glass of wine. But in Estonian culture, there's a particular place where many women meet to bear all, both literally and figuratively. The sauna. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is an award-winning documentary which follows a group of women over seven years, artfully capturing every bead of sweat, every inch of skin,

as the women reveal their deepest secrets before plunging into an icy lake. I'm joined now by the documentary's director, Anna Hintz, and the cinematographer, Ant Tamic, to discuss the lengths they had to go to and why they did to capture this intimate ritual. Welcome, welcome. Hello, hello. Good to have both of you with us.

Anna, let me start with you. The sauna-based rituals that are carried out by women of the Voro community in Estonia are so unique. They're actually on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Why did you want to do this film? Talk to me a little bit about the catalyst. Well, I think there was no other way because I come from that culture. So in a way, the film is rooted deeply in my bones and blood and soul. And for me, since childhood, when I was really close with my granny who's from the region um I um I remember once um

very important uh smoke sauna that I think left me this um understanding of what this amazing space is is that when my grandfather had died and his body was in the farm and we went to smoke sauna before funeral with my granny and aunt and niece and there my granny first time ever revealed in that dark safe space how grandfather had betrayed on her lived with another woman and she really released all the emotions connected to that like all the pain all the anger frustration and we were there as a community around just listening just like letting these emotions through us there are also certain chants where you um turn to water to clean and give healing and um and one smoke sauna session lasts around like four hours so it takes some time

and then once we went back to the house I felt that granny had made peace with grandfather and I was 11 and it really stuck me that you know on this earth there is a safe space where absolutely all your experiences and emotions can be shared can be heard and we are there all naked as we are born it's kind of like this cosmic womb. A cosmic womb. I love that. Yes, yes. And I really wanted to give that experience also to the film for the audience is that at least for that hour and a half,

especially in the dark cinema hall, you can be part of that possibility to be really heard, to be really seen and to be really embraced by that community of sisterhood around. Let me talk to Anz for a moment about this as well, because it is very intimate, you know, and you do feel like you're in the smoke sauna, which is created by burning the logs, the smoke sauna. Anse, before you filmed the women, you and Anna did a trial filming session in which you filmed Anna naked and then you watched back the footage together to try and figure out

whether it was what her vision was. How was that? I mean, yeah, we did this first day together and without any comment before we shot the trial day. So after we watched this footage, we realized that

I had this man view or how to say like a male gaze male gaze view perspective yeah, but what I remember Like a male gaze. Male gaze view perspective, yeah. But what I remember, I also didn't feel good about it. Of course, if you're in that room, you have like four or five naked bodies. And you're men.

You somehow feel that this is the normal thing to do, to film these things, what you see there. But with Don, we realized that it's totally wrong way. We don't want to show all these body shapes, all this, whatever these are. Because some body parts have been sexualized, I guess, in a certain way. We don't want to sexualize it. And we figured out that we need to show it as landscape, as light on some body angles. I mean, the curves, the reflections, all this heat and sweet and all these details. Yes, it must be very difficult as well. I can imagine filming in a sauna and the lens and I know what it's like even if there's a drop of rain. But let me go back to you, Anna. You know,

women used to give birth in these saunas. You talked about your grandmother there after a funeral. What came out with the women that you took together for this documentary? What came out is very sad statistics that when you, I can tell that when you go to smoke sauna, you know, with women, everyone has some kind of experience of either sexual assault or some kind of harassment.

Out of five women, there are at least two who have been raped and this is something that the depth of that really um stuck me and and these are also we started with our friends and then during seven years there were more women approaching who wanted to be part of that process, the healing process. And even friends who go to a smoke sauna, they had not shared certain things. And that is, at the same time, huge healing power when you are there all together. Do you think, Anna, it's because you're also literally naked well smoke sauna is always you cannot watch it only um like materially but also spirit it's a

spiritual place for us so yes you are naked um physically but also always like spiritually naked and efficiently. And I think it is also the darkness in smoke sauna, certain darkness, certain smell, what is there, this kind of tardy smell. And yes, you put off all your clothes, kind of all these masks and how we identify ourselves with, and you are there. And the nakedness, what I experienced since childhood is something very beautiful like natural you are there with all the different bodies and all everybody really is beautiful everybody has their right to exist as they are and this is something very bonding yes being all naked and and in that heat and sweating it all out uh during several

hours so um and for us smoke sauna is as i said a spiritual place so already that context that okay that is a safe space gives that opening up i think also and it's so good to have you on it's so interesting that you let people have the final say that they didn't have to basically sign a release until after they had seen the edit so no doubt people found it

very powerful as well thanks to documentary director Anna Hintz and cinematographer Ant Tamic and Smoke Sauna Sisterhood will be available in UK cinemas from October. Let me let you know as well, tomorrow Anita is joined

by the journalist and writer Catlin Moran. She spent her career examining the lives of girls and women. We're asking why she turned her attention to men in her new book, What About Men?

That will be coming up. And thank you so much for all your messages that you've sent in throughout the programme. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the greatest storyteller of all? To countless fans worldwide,

the answer is Walt Disney. I'm Mel Gedroych, and in my Radio 4 podcast, Walt Disney, A Life in Films, I'm leaping through the looking glass and entering the world of the man behind the mouse. Who was the real Walt Disney? And how did somebody who moulded Western pop culture in his image end up on his deathbed, afraid that he'd be forgotten. Through the stories of 10 of his greatest works, I'll be separating what's fact and what's fiction when it comes to this much mythologized genius. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.