FirstSigns

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 Awareness Day approaches and we’ve got free posters and factsheets for you to email around and print off.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Wedge pops in to ask how you feel about websites that claim to be ‘official’ but are really just hobby websites that soon get abandoned and neglected. Don’t you want to be able to trust the organisations on the web?

We get our web address into Cosmo, and Jules gets quoted.