>>6598
"Shaving one's head isn't a symptom of any specific mental disorder - mentally healthy people shave their heads - but it can be a side effect of the mania caused by any number of them.

It's most often a control issue, similar to the reasons behind cutting oneself. Subjects don't cut or shave themselves to feel pain or to go bald, but to exercise control over their feelings or self-image. Many mental disorder sufferers feel a loss of control due to their condition. For example, a person suffering from depression can have an episode where everything in their life is going well, and they still feel the effects of depression. This leads to a feeling that it doesn't matter what the sufferer does, they will still feel depressed. B does not follow A. The sufferer is not in control. By taking control of their body image - shaving their head - they prove to themselves that they are indeed in control.

Another reason is a wish to erase one's identity and start again. The notion of an identity starts with the hair. It's a fashion accessory that all of us carry around with us, and it's in close proximity to where your thoughts and face are. A new identity starts with new thoughts, new face, and abandoning of meaningless things like vanity.

Finding out the subject's motives for cutting their hair is something a therapist will absolutely look into. Although the movies portray it as the start of a manic episode, it can just as easily be the end of one." - someguy