Understanding Self-Harm

"Self Injury/ Self Harm"

The best available evidence to date indicates that four times as many females than males have direct experience of self-harm.

Angelina Jolie was teased by other students who also targeted her for her distinctive features, for being extremely thin, and for wearing glasses and braces. Her self-esteem was further diminished when her initial attempts at modeling proved unsuccessful. She started to cut herself; later Angelina stated: "I collected knives and always had certain things around. For some reason, the ritual of having cut myself and feeling the pain, maybe feeling alive, feeling some kind of release, it was somehow therapeutic to me."


So what is "Self Harm"?

Attempts to understand self-injury fall broadly into either attempts to interpret motives, or application of psychological models.

Motives for self-injury are often personal, often do not fit into medicalised models of behaviour and may seem incomprehensible to others, as demonstrated by this example:

“My motivations for self-harming were diverse, but included examining the interior of my arms for hydraulic lines. This may sound strange.”

Motives for self-injury can be different. Some feel as if they are not good enough and they might not want to take it out on the person who harmed them. It's often difficult for them to open up and tell about their "secret shame". Often when the sufferer does tell somebody there is a lack of understanding or knowledge of how to help.

Assessment of motives in a medical setting is usually based on precursors to the incident, circumstances and information from the patient however the limited studies comparing professional and personal assessments show that these differ with professionals suggesting more manipulative or punitive motives.

The UK ONS study reported only two motives: "to draw attention" and "because of anger".

Many people who self-injure state that it allows them to "go away" or dissociate, separating the mind from feelings that are causing anguish. This may be achieved by tricking the mind into believing the pain felt at the time is caused by self-injury instead of the issues they were facing before: the physical pain therefore acts as a distraction from emotional pain.

To complement this theory, one can consider the need to 'stop' feeling emotional pain and mental agitation. "A person may be hyper-sensitive and overwhelmed; a great many thoughts may be revolving within their mind, and they may either become triggered or could make a decision to stop the overwhelming feelings."

The sexual organs may be deliberately hurt as a way to deal with unwanted feelings of sexuality, or as a means of punishing sexual organs that may be perceived as having responded in contravention to the person's wellbeing. (e.g., responses to childhood sexual abuse).

Alternatively self-injury may be a means of feeling something, even if the sensation is unpleasant and painful. Those who self-injure sometimes describe feelings of emptiness or numbness (anhedonia), and physical pain may be a relief from these feelings. "A person may be detached from himself or herself, detached from life, numb and unfeeling. They may then recognise the need to function more, or have a desire to feel real again, and a decision is made to create sensation and 'wake up'.

It is also important to note that many self-injurers report feeling very little to no pain while self-harming. Those who engage in self-injury face the contradictory reality of harming themselves whilst at the same time obtaining relief from this act. It may even be hard for some to actually initiate cutting, but they often do because they know the relief that will follow.

For some self-injurers this relief is primarily psychological whilst for others this feeling of relief comes from the beta endorphins released in the brain (the same chemicals that are thought to be responsible for the "runner's high" and are similar to morphine). Endorphins are endogenous opioids that are released in response to physical injury, act as natural painkillers, and induce pleasant feelings and would act to reduce tension and emotional distress.

As a coping mechanism, self-injury can become psychologically addictive because, to the self-injurer, it works; it enables him/her to deal with intense stress in the current moment. The patterns sometimes created by it, such as specific time intervals between acts of self-injury, can also create a behavioural pattern that can result in a wanting or craving to fulfill thoughts of self-injury.

Also see: National Institute for Clinical Excellence (July 2004). "Self-harm The short-term physical and psychological management and secondary prevention of self-harm in primary and secondary care"

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