What Are the Challenges That Face a Psychotherapist Working with Self Harm or Eating Disorders.
What are the challenges that face a psychotherapist working with self harm or eating disorders.
“She cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside. The lines I wear around my wrist are there to prove that I exist. A broken mirror, a bleeding fist, a silver blade against a wrist, tears falling down to lips unkissed, she's not the kind you'll come to miss.” (http://xxdailydreamxx.tripod.com/id16.html)
I took this poem from an internet site that encourages people who self harm to express themselves creatively or make themselves heard. It helped me to understand the emotions and thoughts behind self harm.
Self harm is considered to be a deliberate attempt at causing physical harm. As you can imagine there a number of different ways and methods to do this.
Cutting the skin, burning, hitting yourself, some even argue excessive drinking, over eating, under eating, over exercising can be considered self harm. All these actions have a way of distracting us from being alone with our fears, feelings and thoughts.
Self harm can be looked at as a self defeating behaviour. Which means that at one time this behaviour was used as a successful coping strategy and now it has become a maladapted coping strategy for an individual. And for them it works, albeit temporarily.
Kahan and Pattison, (1983, 1984). identified three components of self-harming acts:
Directness relates to whether the injury was intentional or not. Was the injury procured with awareness and was the intention of the individual.
Lethality refers to the likelihood of death resulting from the act in the immediate or near future.
Repetition, is the action repeatitive or a one off.
There are many different definitions and extensive lists of what constitutes self harming behaviour. All of which provide further insight into the behaviour. Self harming is a very private act and is shrouded with shame and guilt. It can often
“She cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside. The lines I wear around my wrist are there to prove that I exist. A broken mirror, a bleeding fist, a silver blade against a wrist, tears falling down to lips unkissed, she's not the kind you'll come to miss.” (http://xxdailydreamxx.tripod.com/id16.html)
I took this poem from an internet site that encourages people who self harm to express themselves creatively or make themselves heard. It helped me to understand the emotions and thoughts behind self harm.
Self harm is considered to be a deliberate attempt at causing physical harm. As you can imagine there a number of different ways and methods to do this.
Cutting the skin, burning, hitting yourself, some even argue excessive drinking, over eating, under eating, over exercising can be considered self harm. All these actions have a way of distracting us from being alone with our fears, feelings and thoughts.
Self harm can be looked at as a self defeating behaviour. Which means that at one time this behaviour was used as a successful coping strategy and now it has become a maladapted coping strategy for an individual. And for them it works, albeit temporarily.
Kahan and Pattison, (1983, 1984). identified three components of self-harming acts:
Directness relates to whether the injury was intentional or not. Was the injury procured with awareness and was the intention of the individual.
Lethality refers to the likelihood of death resulting from the act in the immediate or near future.
Repetition, is the action repeatitive or a one off.
There are many different definitions and extensive lists of what constitutes self harming behaviour. All of which provide further insight into the behaviour. Self harming is a very private act and is shrouded with shame and guilt. It can often