Most people wouldn’t begin to think about hurting their own body as a way of coping with life. For some, the thought is disturbing and frightening. For others, self-injury has become a comfort, a way of coping with stress, a way of finding some kind of relief over their emotional pain. I tend to view self-injury as a coping mechanism, one which often works well, despite its lasting effects.

There are many different terms for self injury, including self harm, self mutilation, parasuicide, self injurious behaviour and self inflicted violence. You’ll find that most people who engage in this behaviour dislike some of these terms for various reasons. I find self injury the least offensive. All of these terms generally refer to any behaviour that involves “deliberate, repetitive, impulsive, non-lethal harming of one’s body”(Favazza, 1996).

There are also different types of self injury. The type discussed on this site is called repetitive (impulsive) self injury. This type of self injury involves:

• marked by a shift toward ruminating on self-injury even when not actually doing it
• self-identification as a self-injurer
• The act is impulsive in nature, and often becomes a reflex response to any sort of stress, positive or negative.
• Other types of self injury become repetitive when what was formerly a symptom (occasional self injury) becomes a disease in itself (the self injury becomes like an addiction). (Favazza, 1996)

While a lot of people will engage in some form of self injury throughout their life time, it doesn’t become a problem for all of them. The repetitive (impulsive) type of self injury discussed on this site does not include behaviours that involve:

• religious or spiritual purposes
• Body decoration
• Sexual gratification
• Trying to fit in or be cool

While the acts associated with these types of behaviours may be considered self injurious, they do not have the same motivation, duration, or addictive nature as repetitive (impulsive) self injury.

The most common forms of self injury involve:

• cutting
• burning
• head banging
• hair pulling
• skin picking
• hitting hard objects with parts of one’s body
• interfering with the healing of wounds

and in more severe cases:

• breaking bones
• genital mutilation
• self amputation

This list is by no means all of the types of actions that can be considered self injury. Basically, any act of inflicting physical pain on one’s body to achieve emotional relief can be considered self injury.