When several months had passed without any improvement, I saw that it was time to do some research. I went online, and soon knew the name of our problem: Compulsive Licking. I learned that it could be caused by several different things, namely fleas, skin irritation, allergy, stress, or inner pain. The first thing you do when your cat starts compulsively licking itself is make sure it has no fleas. The second thing to do is to go to the vet and check for allergies and possible illness.
Supposedly, in Beanie’s case it was stress-related, but I had begun to doubt that. He had been with us long enough by that time, and seemed perfectly adjusted and happy. My husband and I had no children and no other pets to harass him, so there were no stress factors of that kind. Also, from watching Beanie I knew that his licking was not a reaction to a stressful situation: he never did it when (or after) he was nervous or frightened. It was more like he did it when he had nothing else to do.
I went down the list and one by one ruled out the possible causes. Beanie had no fleas, no allergies, no skin irritation. He had a clean bill of health – except for his licking. The only conclusion I could come to was that his problem, although it could have been triggered by any of the above mentioned things, was now simply a bad habit.
I want to emphasize this once more, since during my Internet research I found no reference to such a possibility: even when the original cause is gone, compulsive licking can go on as a bad habit.