Self-Injury: Self expression inside out – Taking care of yourself and your clients
Part six of my article published in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal last year. People who work with clients who self-injure need to be prepared to give up their preconceptions and accept that self-injury has a purpose, a function and that it is a 'valid' way to cope for those who feel they have no other way. The work requires patience, setting aside judgement, and effective use of supervision and/or debriefing in order to help and empower clients. Before considering how to provide new choices for people whose self-injure, professionals working with such clients should reflect on how they may feel throughout ...
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SIAD 2010 – what now?
As we approach the end of another Self-Injury Awareness Day (in the UK anyway, some of our global friends are still very much in day-time!) I wonder what has changed, and what has it meant for you? I know that for LifeSIGNS and for Wedge and I it’s the culmination of many hours hard work, but it’s also just one ...
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Self-Injury Awareness Day
Today is SIAD, or Self-Injury Awareness Day. All over the globe people and groups will be raising awareness about this difficult subject and at FirstSigns / LifeSIGNS we have been busy preparing for several weeks. Wedge has worked hard on our SIAD page and spent a great deal of time giving quotes to the media (it’s fantastic that each year the ...
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Self-injury: Self expression inside out – Hard to stop
The fifth part of our series, first published as a single article in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal last year. Because self-injury is experienced as a coping mechanism, it is a mistake for carers or professionals to push for a cessation of the self-harming behaviour. Those who are trapped in the cycle of self-injury or self-harm feel under a great deal ...
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Self-injury: Self expression inside out – Not so irrational
As promised, here's the fourth part of the article I wrote for the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal: At first glance it may be hard to see how hurting oneself can make one feel better. Is there a ‘high’? Some kind of ‘rush’? On the surface, it is hard to see what is good about self-injury, especially when the person ...
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SIAD 2010 – Self Injury Awareness Day, downloads, posters, wristbands and resources
It's only two weeks until Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD), an international event that takes place on 1st March each year to raise awareness about self-injury. As always, FirstSigns (LifeSIGNS) has produced a fantastic self-injury awareness day web page to help you with your own awareness raising, with guidance as to what you might like to do and information to aid you. ...
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Self-injury: Self-expression inside out – Not just a girl thing
Today we bring you the third part of my article published in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal last year. The media tend to focus on young girls who cut themselves. Women's magazines and teen magazines for girls reflect their audiences, so naturally stay focused on girls who self-injure. By contrast, men's magazines hardly touch the subject –perhaps a reflection of the ...
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Self-injury: Self-expression inside out – What is self-injury?
The second part of my article first published in the Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal (HCPJ) published by the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP), in January 2009: At FirstSigns (LifeSIGNS) we define self-injury as a coping mechanism - something a person learns to rely on to help them deal with intolerable distress. We do not focus on the self-injurious behaviour ...
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Self-injury: Self-expression inside out – Introduction
This article (to be seven blog articles) 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. Over the next few weeks we'll be pubishing all seven ...
