This article (seven web pages) was first published in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal (HCPJ) published by the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP), in January 2009, and is reproduced here with permission.

With some surprise, we find it has been re-published within the Encylcopeia Britanica, under self-injury.

Professionals who work with people who self-injure can often feel helpless and frustrated by the self-destructive and self-sabotaging impulses of their clients. Self-injury and self-harm can elicit a great many emotional reactions from teachers, parents, partners, colleagues and healthcare professionals, and with no clear route regarding treatment and support for self-harm, potential helpers can feel unsupported, neglected and hopeless.

There is hope, however, both for people who self-injure and those who may be in a position to provide care and treatment. I have battled with self-injurious behaviour most of my life, and I have been working with professionals and other people who hurt themselves since 2002 to raise awareness about self-injury and self-harm from a service user’s perspective.

I have been fortunate to receive help from doctors with experience in the field of self-injury and self-harm, though at times I have felt abused by healthcare workers. I have reflected and meditated on my own self-injury, and have an understanding of where it all stems from and what it does for me.  I have also learned a great deal from the thousands of people who have told me their stories through our voluntary organisation, FirstSigns (formerly LifeSIGNS).

Coming to a partial understanding of self-injury has taken me many years, and I am thrilled to find that more and more professionals are taking a keen interest with a view to helping people who self-injure in a practical sense.

Next page >> 'What is self-injury?' with a handy diagram of definitions