Self-injury is a very serious symptom of psychological distress. If you have been either cutting, burning, scratching, or otherwise hurting yourself, please consider getting help. If someone you care about is engaging in this behavior, please consider encouraging them to get help.

What is self-injury? 

This type of behavior can be the result of several things, with one being the most prominent: emtoion regulation. For some people with intense psychological distress, emotion will be so powerful that they are unable to reduce it without engaging in self-injurious (or parasuicidal) behavior. For these people, the parasuicide is a way of regulating this intense emotion. As a result, there’s some temporary relief of the emotional pain and the behavior is reinforced; that is, the use of the behavior is likely to increase in the future because there was a positive outcome (reduction of strong negative emoton).

Often, this behavior can seem to be “attention-seeking” and there’s no doubt that it can result in some attention from people. However, for most self-injurious patients, cutting or other self-injury does not begin as a way to get attention.

Get help

Regardless of the origin of the parasuicide, it’s a serious problem that needs treatment. DBT has been shown to be an effective treatment for parasuicide. Contact us today.