SELF-INFLICTED VIOLENCE
Self-inflicted violence is becoming an increasingly prevalent phenomenon in our culture, and one that psychotherapists understand as a way, like eating disorders, for people to manage difficult feelings. Sometimes called self-mutilation or self-harm, self-inflicted violence (SIV) has been defined by one author as "direct, deliberate destruction or alteration of one's own body tissue without conscious suicidal intent" (Favazza, Bodies Under Siege, 1986). This can include cutting, burning, plucking hairs from the head or body, bone breaking, head banging, needle poking, scratching the skin or rubbing glass into the skin, or the repetitive rubbing of skin with a pencil eraser. An estimated 2 million or more people engage in some form of SIV.
SIV commonly begins during early adolescence, though it is also practiced by people in their late teens, twenties, and thirties. It may begin in response to a particular stressor, like family discord or parents divorcing. In other instances, it is adopted as a means of making physical pain and visible scars for what previously was solely emotional and invisible. SIV is one way people may respond to the emotional pain of physical or sexual abuse. In some cases, it is a way of a person's creating feeliings and staving off a sense of being empty, hollow, or deadened. The practice of SIV may temporarily create a feeling of relief, where feelings are let out, or of wholeness, where now feeling anything is part of the person's experience. Gaining feelings of greater control is also a reason given by people for their self-injuring. In most cases, people who engage in SIV are secretive about the acts, feeling ashamed.
Treatment for SIV is largely aimed at addressing underlying emotions. a therapist may or may not initially try to intervene in the pattern of self-injuring behaviors, depending on their seriousness. In this sense, SIV deserves both long-term and short-term attention. Many people who engage in self-injury find that, though they improve in treatment, over a course of time, it may be a number of years before the overt symptoms cease altogether.
There are many resources for people who engage in SIV. The Counseling Center staff are knowledgeable and empathic about SIV, able to address it in individual, short-term counseling, and able to make referrals for longer-term therapy, where appropriate.
For help or referrals call the Baldwin-Wallace Counseling Center at 440/826-2180
275 Eastland Rd.