There are myriad ways in which a woman can make herself unattractive to men. She can get fall-over drunk in the street, disfigure herself with unsightly tattoos, become a bit lardy or burst into tears with monotonous regularity. If she really wants to scare them off, then she can shave her head. Rare is the man who goes for baldy chic.

Britney Spears, the dethroned Queen of Pop, has achieved all of this and more in recent days, prompting fears that she is heading for a nervous breakdown. In what turned into a bizarre peepshow for passers-by in Tarzana, California, Britney emerged sobbing from her limousine and entered Esther’s Haircutting Studio, where she demanded that her famously glossy locks be shaved. When the stylists refused she grabbed the clippers and gave herself a Kojak. As she looked in the mirror at the end result she wept: “Oh my God . . . my mum is going to be so upset with me.” Esther Tognozzi, who owns the salon, said that throughout Britney was “just there in body and not really emotionally there”.

You don’t need to be a psychologist to read this as a 100-decibel cry for help. Even if you allow for publicity seeking, it isn’t normal for a girl whose career rides on her looks to sabotage them deliberately in what could be construed as a public form of self harm.

But then Spears, 25, has never known normality. And the image that was constructed for her was full of contradictions. Groomed from the age of 8 by her parents, agents and record companies to be an entertainer, she has grown up not as a teenger, a young woman or a mother but as a commercial product. She was marketed as the all-American, squeaky-clean, virginal prom queen who famously said: “I don't believe in sex before marriage and I don’t believe in drugs or smoking, I believe in God”, yet at 17 was cavorting Lolita-like in pigtails and school uniform in the Baby (One More Time) video.

Expert View

Thanks, Britney, from all of us bald men for making the buzzcut unfashionable

Chris Ayres

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BACKGROUND

• Oops!...She’s (Not) Done It Again

• Convention notebook: Right or wrong, Britney is not wanted at the party

• Any Britney is good Britney

• K-Fed and Britney fight over kids

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• Oops!...She’s (Not) Done It Again

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• In pictures: Britney Spears through the years

We were told she was a virgin (Spears later admitted she had had sex with her boyfriend, Justin Timberlake) but she had church leaders up in arms when she was photographed for Rolling Stone with one hand around a pink Teletubby and the other pointing suggestively towards her pink satin knickers. She believed in marriage yet is now on the brink of divorce from the dancer Kevin Federline (her first marriage to Jason Alexander lasted 55 hours and was annulled) and fears losing custody of her two young sons. Before long the avowed nondrinker was partying hard, seen drinking in the street and was in rehab.

Soon after shaving her head she had two more tattoos, telling a fellow customer that she was “tired of having things [hair extensions] plugged into her, tired of people touching her”. As an absolute rejection of everything her life has been so far, her baby-bald head could not be more symbolic.

As Dr Alistair Roff, the social psychologist and expert in celebrity culture, says, her hair epitomised the American, blonde Barbie icon. “It’s practically publicly owned — and she wants to cleanse herself of this unwanted attention,” he says. “By lowering our expectations of her in this way she’s limiting what people can say about her. You can’t say she’s having a bad hair day if she’s got no hair at all.” Dr Roff said it suggested a desire to rid herself of male attention: “Having no hair is often seen as abandoning your femininity. This is not so much a cry for help as a cry of ‘leave me alone!’ ” Aside from an act of rebellion or simply not wanting to be thought feminine, there are other associations with hairless heads, such as chemotherapy for cancer (Kylie Minogue) and alopecia (Gail Porter). Russell Manley, who owns Tommyguns hair salon in Soho and Shoreditch and counts Robbie Williams and Kate Moss among his clients, says: “Despite women with cancer and alopecia displaying their baldness more proudly these days, it is still shocking to see a woman without hair.”

There is always, of course, the possibility of a publicity stunt. Recently a tired and emotional Britney was photographed falling into a taxi in a short dress and no knickers, leaving little to the imagination. The photos enjoyed global circulation. But the psychologist Linda Blair doubts that the hair-shaving episode was planned. “When people do things like this it is usually impulsiveness,” she says. “They need an ‘up’. It is a discharge of energy. I don’t think she put a lot of forethought into it. What she is saying is, ‘I can’t bear it’. She is like a Barbie doll that is accessorised and she wants to be herself. It could be a release of tension, an act of direct harm or a bid for attention.”

Blair, who is writing a book called Straight Talking, about the ills of modern society and the overemphasis on celebrities as role models, adds: “In some ways I wish people would take note of the pressures that we, the general public, put on celebrities. We make them into role models to fulfil all our needs and desires. When you think about it the child stars of yesteryear, such as Shirley Temple, got off lightly.”

Roff agrees that it probably wasn’t planned. “Britney is not that strategic and most of this is probably unconsciously done, because of the high levels of stress she has experienced.” However, he adds: “Stars who have been in the public eye since childhood often have problems, just like people consumed by their work generally, with no room for respite. Britney is judged by everyone, she cannot escape, but she lacks a support network and so continues to crave attention as much as she loathes it.

“Some stars reinvent themselves: when Sinead O’Connor got rid of her hair she had a new outlet creatively. But Britney is unlikely to have a successful change in career with this look and will just get more bad publicity. She may be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and it will certainly get worse unless she gets support.”

Cary Cooper, professor of psychology and health at Lancaster University and an expert on stress, says: “We helped to create Britney Spears — we put pressure on her and I think we should feel extremely sorry for her. This is a young woman who had no teenage years. She didn’t have enough support. The press feels she’s playing some kind of game. If we don’t help her it could get very very bad.”

Britney is certainly used to having her every move watched. She was photographed driving, idiotically, with her baby son Sean on her knee and had to go on national TV to explain herself. Last year she almost fell over and dropped Sean in the street, prompting another volley of “unfit mother!” cries. Now she has created a whole new raft of speculation about her fragile mental state.

Russell Manley says: “Clients who do something that drastic generally want a complete change in lifestyle, normally after a split from a boyfriend or hand in hand with a career change. Lots of women change their hair to signify a new them. But Britney’s change is all the more extreme as she’s in the much more extreme situation of being in the public eye and apparently very unhappy.”

He says the look doesn’t look good on Britney: “She’s carrying a few pounds and she has a badly-shaped head. Normally if someone asked for something I think would be horrendous I’d refuse to do it. Otherwise you’ve got someone walking round with your signature on their head.

“I’d also refuse if someone didn’t look in a fit mental state. Shaving your hair off doesn’t necessarily mean you aren't, but crying and grabbing the clippers surely shows Britney’s having some kind of breakdown.

“I have had celebrity clients ask for things that will look awful on them. Zoë Ball once asked for a bright red dye — it did look awful and she got it dyed back the next day. Britney can’t now do anything but wait for it to grow out.”

He said Sinead O’Connor did promote a trend in shaved heads for a while. “But the women who came in for that would be calm and purposeful, which Britney clearly isn’t. Most of them also just used it as a one-off rebellious act. But even so they were quite happy with it afterwards, but Britney clearly isn’t as she’s already started wearing a wig.”

The whole escapade, suggests Manley, is a two fingered salute. “Britney’s act seems to be a final ‘f**k you’,” he says. “But she will probably regret it.”