Title: Intro to Self Injury
1Intro to Self Injury
- Essential Question How can we identify
teenagers with mental disorders and what
strategies can we use to help them?
2Intro to Self Injury
- Learning Objective The students will have an
understanding of how to recognize warning signs
and understand how to proceed with
interventions.
3What is Self Injury
- When you hurt your body on purpose it is called
"self-injury." Other names for self-injury are
"cutting", "self-harm", or "self-mutilation."
4Types of Self Injury
- Cutting
- Burning (or "branding" with hot objects)
- Picking at skin or re-opening wounds
- Hair-pulling
- Head-banging
- Hitting (with objects)
- Bone-breaking
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5Why Do Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- Teenagers who self-injure often report that there
is no adult they could talk to who accepts them
for who they are. - Could be an effort to make others care or feel
guilty or to drive them away. - Self-injury can be set off by certain events.
6Why Do Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- To try to get a reaction from someone," "to get
control of a situation," and "to stop bad
feelings." - Way to self-regulate feelings and help people
cope with overwhelming negative emotions.
7Why Do Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- Children dont know how to express and deal with
anger and sadness, instead turning emotional pain
on themselves. - Depression, for example, is often described as
anger turned inward
8Why Do Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- Self-injury makes some people feel part of a
group. - Support from internet community.
- When they don't want to self-injure anymore, it
means they have to leave a community. - Facebook and myspace groups
9Why Do Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- Celebrities, too, have contributed self-injury.
- Confessions of self-injury include the late
Princess Diana, Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie,
Nicole Richie, Richie Edwards, Courtney Love and
the lead singer on the Garbage band album "Bleed
Like Me."
10How Often DO Teenagers Self Injure Themselves???
- 46 of the high school students reported some
form of self-injury within the previous year. - 17 percent of college students have self-injured
- 15 percent of the general adolescent population.
11Symptoms of Self Injury
- Frequent cuts and burns that cannot be explained
- Self-punching or scratching
- Needle sticking
- Head banging
- Eye pressing
- Finger or arm biting
- Pulling out one's hair
- Picking at one's skin
12Signs of Self InjuryOthers notice the following
- Unexplained and frequent injuries
- Unexplained blood stains on clothing, bedding
- Individual has tools (i.e., knife, lighter) in
possession without explanation - Individual wears long sleeves and pants in warm
weather
13Signs of Self Injury Individual has difficulty
with the following
- Self-esteem
- Handling and/or expressing strong feelings
- Interpersonal relationships
- Functioning at work, school, and/or home
14Signs of Self InjuryIndividual does the
following
- Makes excuses for injuries
- His/her own laundry (wont let others help)
- Isolates himself/herself for long periods of time
- Becomes defensive when asked questions
15Self Injury-Quotes
- "I feel relieved and less anxious after I cut.
The emotional pain slowly slips away into the
physical pain." - "It's a way to have control over my body because
I can't control anything else in my life. - Cutting Story CBS
16Self Injury-Quotes
- "It expresses emotional pain or feelings that I'm
unable to put into words." - "I usually feel like I have a black hole in the
pit of my stomach. At least if I feel pain it's
better than nothing."
17Intervention and Treatment
- Find ways to soothe or focus yourself when you
feel like self-injuring. - Make a list of non-harmful things that help you
feel relaxed and real. - Keep this list where you can see it so when you
feel like hurting yourself.
18Intervention and TreatmentHow do I stop hurting
myself in the moment?
- Here are some ways to use up nervous energy
- go for a long walk
- dance to loud music
- shoot hoops or kick soccer goals
- go jogging
- clean your room
- Here are some ways to relax and de-stress
- take a bath or a hot shower
- listen to music
- write in a journal
- talk to a friend
- read a good book
19Intervention and TreatmentHow can I help a
friend who self injures?
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- Suggest to your friend that they talk to an adult
they trust,, like a parent, school counselor, or
their health care provider. - Second, support your friend by listening to them,
and letting them know you care about them. - Lastly, print out this guide, or some other
information on self-injury, and give it to them.
They can read it when they feel ready. - Â
20Intervention and TreatmentWhat should I do if my
friend won't talk to an adult, and refuses help?
- Find a trusted adult who knows your friend, and
talk to that person. - Tell an adult even if your friend asked you to
keep their self-injury a secret! - Remember your friends safety is of the most
importance.
21Cutting-Nathalie's Story
- I Cut When The Pain Gets To Be Too Much Nathalie
calls her self a "cutter." She is 15 years old.
She doesn't have many friends in real life. Her
best friends are from the Internet. On the
Internet she can be totally honest. She can talk
about why she cuts herself and why she doesn't
eat. She has never had a boyfriend and she can
not remember the last time anyone hugged her or
told her they loved her. She lives with her
grandparents because her step-father and mother
didn't want her to live with them anymore.
22Cutting-Nathalies Story
- She gets one hour three times a week on the
Internet. If she goes one minute over, she loses
it for two weeks. She said she can't talk to her
grandparents. She said they come from another
era. Nathalie told me she cuts when the pain gets
to be too much. She has 23 scars. When she was 10
she would sit in the class and stare out the
window. When the teacher would call out her name
and tell her to stop looking out the window and
pay attention it would frighten and embarrass
her. She said the other children in the class
would laugh at her. They called her the Nathalie
the daydreamer.
23Cutting-Nathalies Story
- Sometimes she would get punished for not knowing
the answers to the teacher's questions. She said
once she had to write "I will not stare out the
window" 500 times. I asked her what she would
think about when she was staring out the window.
She said she was usually trying to figure out why
she was such a horrible person. I asked her why
she thought of herself as a horrible person. She
said, "I thought I must be horrible if my mother
doesn't want me to live with her and my father
never wanted to see me." I asked her if her
mother had hit her. She said, "Yes. Sometimes." I
asked her if she thought that her mother was
abusive. She said, "No, I wouldn't say that.
24Cutting-Nathalies Story
- She only hit me when I made her angry. So I guess
I deserved it. Then I asked her why she thought
her father never wanted to see her. She said, "I
really don't know. Isn't it normal for a father
to want to see his own daughter? What could I
have done to make him hate me so much?" She said
he moved away when she was 6. She said she has
written him letters but he has never written
back. She said she lays awake at night wondering
if he ever reads the letters or if he even gets
them. She said he must get them because they
never get returned to me by the post office.
25Cutting-Nathalies Story
- I asked her if she ever told anyone that her
mother was hitting her. She said once she did but
then they talked to her mother and the mother
said Nathalie was a "compulsive liar." They
believed her mother over Nathalie, so Nathalie
was afraid to ever tell anyone else again. When
we talked about her feelings she always said she
learned that people didn't want to hear her true
feelings. So she kept to herself. When they got
too much for her, she would reach for her razor