Compass Reader
SELF HARM...A Serious Issue For Our Teens
Have you noticed that your teen habitually wears an over-sized, long sleeve sweatshirt -- even on hot summer days? Or that your teen is spending an increasing amount of time locked away? Found razor blades or knives and rubber bands tucked away in odd places? These may be signs that your teen is engaged in self-harm...a dangerous behavior that is on the upswing among teenagers.
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that that self-harm typically begins in adolescence and may continue for a lifetime if untreated. While there are not yet any definitive studies that give us reliable statistics, one recent study among college students suggests that as many at 17% engage in this behavior at some level. Another study suggests that one out of every two hundred teens “cut.” Both girls and boys cut...but the behavior happens four times as often among girls.
While most of us seek pleasure rather than pain, cutters explain their self-harming behaviors as an attempt to drown out emotional pain by engaging in more manageable physical pain. Medical science doesn’t have all the answers -- yet -- it appears that brain chemistry plays a role in how and why teens engage in these behaviors. It also appears that newer techniques in therapy such as DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy) are the most effective in bringing about healing.
Steven Levenkron, MS, is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. Author of seven books -- both fiction and non-fiction -- he explores complicated problems including eating disorders, sexual abuse in childhood, obsessive-compulsive disorder and the phenomenon of cutting.
In Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation, Levenkron sheds some light into the dark corner of self-mutilation, revealing a world of private torment shame and secret self-reproach. The book is designed for parents, professionals and cutters themselves...offering a common-sense approach to helping people stop cutting by establishing a trusting, compassionate and strength-based relationship with a therapist.
In The Luckiest Girl in the World, a work of fiction, Levenkron draws the reader into one young woman’s battle with this complicated and perplexing behavior. While less scholarly than Cutting, it offers revealing insights.
If you know a teen who is cutting...take a look at these books...and get that teen help. It is possible to overcome self-harming urges...but it requires professional intervention. You can also learn more at S.A.F.E. Alternatives (www.selfinjury.com.) Compass can help you find treatment alternatives.
A special thanks to the The InnerChange Journal, a publication of the InnerChange Family of Adolescent Treatment Programs for parts of this article.
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