WHY DO PEOPLE SELF HARM

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WHY DO PEOPLE SELF HARM?
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Functions of self-harm

• Control over pain
• Internalised self-hatred messages from others
• Obliterating emotional pain with physical pain
• A communication, e.g. re abuse, unhappiness
• Release of hormones
• Association of pain with comfort ? result of
  parenting experiences
• A way of making your body unattractive to others
• Self-stimulation feeling SOMETHING
• Any combination of the above

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Types of self harm

• BROADLY
• Harm to be viewed by others, i.e. as a
  communication
• Harm which has a personal, psychological purpose
• Social Contagion harm as a strategy learnt
  from others
• ALL are significant and worthy of attention, and
  may co-exist

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Process of Self Harm

• Two Broad Aspects to the process of self-harm
  (Levenkron)
• A powerful rage towards someone powerful (often a
  parent)
• A complete inability to think and express oneself

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Self Harm as a Solution to Emotional Pain

• Initial, hard to dissipate emotion
• An initial act of self-harm (often accidental or
  prompted by awareness of others harm) provides
  relief
• Maintained by
• inability to address the source of conflict ?
  family communication patterns
• No Language to express feelings
• Poor alternative coping strategies
• Lack of outlet calls for drowning out instead
• Sense of normality is lost

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The act of self-harm - Laura

• My preferred weapon was a razor blade. I would
  buy cheap razors and break them up so that I
  would get the blade out. I also had a wee Stanley
  knife that I carried with me at all times so that
  I would feel secure and safe. I knew that if I
  had it then nothing could hurt me. 
• Immediately before I self harmed I would feel
  numb, completely numb. The whole point of cutting
  was to actually try and be aware of something
  again because it often seemed like I didn't
  actually feel anything. It was quite a weird
  sensation. Sometimes I also felt quite detached.
  At times it was as if I was actually watching
  myself live my life, as if I was watching a film,
  I didn't actually feel real and nothing around me
  did either.
• Straight afterwards I always felt relieved. I
  felt as if I could face living again, I could
  cope with any silly little problem like not
  knowing what I could have for dinner or that I
  had missed the bus. It made me feel "real" again.

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Common Profile of Someone who Self-Harms

• Sense of self as powerless in their context
• Sense of difference and dislocation from others
  few or no healthy attachments
• Feelings of being an inadequate disappointment to
  others
• Cannot trust others with their feelings and
  emotions
• Often almost pathologically apologetic
• Often high achieving and popular but not
  touched by these successes
• Someone whose childhood experiences have shaped
  the development of these characteristics

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Parental Role

• Key Healthy Parental Features
• Confidence / authoritativeness creates a sense
  of safety and containment in the child
• Nurturance and Warmth creates self esteem in
  the child

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Lack of Confidence / Authoritativeness

• Can result in child taking parenting stance
• Leads a child to feel protective of parent,
  unable to express negative feelings
• Can result in child turning anger at others
  inwards
• Seems to be linked to non-dissociative self harm

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Lack of Nurturance and Warmth (with abuse as the
worst case scenario)

• Leads to sense of disconnection from self and
  others
• Can result in overwhelming emotional load and
  simultaneous inability to think and express
  oneself helpfully
• Provides a sense of relationships having failed
• Powerful distraction necessary
• DISSOCIATION more common
• N.b This is the heavy end

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Consequences of Parenting Styles for Managing
Feelings

• Self harmers often find managing their own and
  others emotions difficult
• Cannot read emotional responses
• Results in sense of emotional isolation
• Emotional conflict can be unbearable and becomes
  something to be avoided at all costs

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SUMMARY

• Self Harm is often a coping strategy
• Self Harm is often a way of communicating
  distress
• That coping strategy can become a problem in
  itself, but does not have to be