Arizona State University Professor Rose Weitz, the author of Women And Their Hair: Seeking Power Through Resistance And Accommodation, argues hair is central to women's social position and analyses how women can use hairstyle to gain power.

Ritualistic changes in appearance were once part and parcel of human societies, serving as a rite of passage. According to Dr Castle, tattooing, like frequent changes in hair, can reflect a human need to formalise the process of marking moments of maturation and change.

It is a logical assertion. Nina Funnell, a 25-year-old media academic, booked into a salon three days after being sexually assaulted. She explains that the urgency for a hair makeover was about reinventing her place in the world.

With her face swollen, her decision to get a new hairdo was not aesthetically motivated. "It had nothing to do with being pretty because at that point, I had no desire to leave the house," she says. "My hair was really curly. I walked into the salon and was just like, 'I want it dead straight.' " Her hair took seven hours to straighten.

"I'm glad it took so long because it felt like it needed to be a long change," she says. "I didn't want to walk in there and it to be over after 20 minutes. It felt right that I was in the studio all day."

Even though she was not cutting her own hair, she describes feeling a strong sense of agency during the process. "Hair was the easiest and most drastic change I could control," she says.

Psychoanalyst Dr Richard Prytula says the mind often uses fantasy and symbol to cope with emotional trauma. "Mental mechanisms such as expressing loss in a symbolic way with hair enables communication and assists release," he says. "Rationality is not the only way to express meaning. Changing appearance to cope with pain makes us feel that the person we were when the loss occurred has changed, as if to say, 'the previous me suffered the loss'."

Playing with the length, colour and style of our hair is not always about trend-chasing acts of vanity. It can be a means to externalise pain and serve as a tool for reinvention. When Rapunzel found her way out of the woods and into the arms of her prince charming, her hair was back to its shiny best. Britney Spears's golden curls, too, made a comeback as her career and not-so-private life struck stability. Just as the loss of their hair mirrored internal struggle, its growth is symbolic of the leading ladies' regained confidence and emotional rebirth.

But, before you book into a salon for an extreme cut or colour, know this - while dramatic changes in hairstyle can encourage release, it is only temporary; and startling snips alone will not resolve emotional crises.

After the peroxide is rinsed and the scissors are put down, life's hardships cannot be untangled with a new hairdo. No matter how fabulous.

Arizona State University Professor Rose Weitz, the author of Women And Their Hair: Seeking Power Through Resistance And Accommodation, argues hair is central to women's social position and analyses how women can use hairstyle to gain power.

Ritualistic changes in appearance were once part and parcel of human societies, serving as a rite of passage. According to Dr Castle, tattooing, like frequent changes in hair, can reflect a human need to formalise the process of marking moments of maturation and change.

It is a logical assertion. Nina Funnell, a 25-year-old media academic, booked into a salon three days after being sexually assaulted. She explains that the urgency for a hair makeover was about reinventing her place in the world.

With her face swollen, her decision to get a new hairdo was not aesthetically motivated. "It had nothing to do with being pretty because at that point, I had no desire to leave the house," she says. "My hair was really curly. I walked into the salon and was just like, 'I want it dead straight.' " Her hair took seven hours to straighten.

"I'm glad it took so long because it felt like it needed to be a long change," she says. "I didn't want to walk in there and it to be over after 20 minutes. It felt right that I was in the studio all day."

Even though she was not cutting her own hair, she describes feeling a strong sense of agency during the process. "Hair was the easiest and most drastic change I could control," she says.

Psychoanalyst Dr Richard Prytula says the mind often uses fantasy and symbol to cope with emotional trauma. "Mental mechanisms such as expressing loss in a symbolic way with hair enables communication and assists release," he says. "Rationality is not the only way to express meaning. Changing appearance to cope with pain makes us feel that the person we were when the loss occurred has changed, as if to say, 'the previous me suffered the loss'."

Playing with the length, colour and style of our hair is not always about trend-chasing acts of vanity. It can be a means to externalise pain and serve as a tool for reinvention. When Rapunzel found her way out of the woods and into the arms of her prince charming, her hair was back to its shiny best. Britney Spears's golden curls, too, made a comeback as her career and not-so-private life struck stability. Just as the loss of their hair mirrored internal struggle, its growth is symbolic of the leading ladies' regained confidence and emotional rebirth.

But, before you book into a salon for an extreme cut or colour, know this - while dramatic changes in hairstyle can encourage release, it is only temporary; and startling snips alone will not resolve emotional crises.

After the peroxide is rinsed and the scissors are put down, life's hardships cannot be untangled with a new hairdo. No matter how fabulous.