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Have you read an interesting book dealing with self injury? Do you want to review one of the books? Please contact me.

Psyke.org Recommends

These are books I have read and find highly recommendable. They all offer good insights on self injury.

Bodies Under Siege

Armando R. Favazza

Bodies Under Siege

This work analyzes the complex issues surrounding self-mutilation, drawing on case studies from clinical psychiatry and cultural anthropology to show that the phenomenon is deeply embedded culturally, and far more common than is often thought. More...

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A Bright Red Scream

Marilee Strong

A Bright Red Scream

An investigation of why so many people deliberately hurt themselves and what can be done to help them. The illness "outed" on a global scale when Princess Diana admitted hurting herself deliberately, and continues to be practised mainly by middle-class women who start in their teens and self-harm throughout their lives. More...

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Healing the Hurt Within

Jan Sutton

Healing the Hurt Within

This work reveals the traumatic experiences underlying self-injury, food misuse and alcohol abuse. As well as offering hope and relief to other sufferers, the stories in this book aim to give those who have contact with sufferers a deeper understanding of self-destructive behaviour. More...

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The Scarred Soul

Tracy Alderman

The Scarred Soul

This step-by-step guide is designed to help victims of self-inflicted violence understand why they feel the need to hurt themselves and to take steps to change their behaviour. Most victims tend to be teenage girls or women in their twenties. To hurt themselves is sometimes a way of focusing and controlling overwhelming feelings of chaos. For others, it frees them from the numbness that defends them from the pain of previous abuse. More...

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Skin Game

Caroline Kettlewell

Skin Game

As a young girl - smart, creative, well loved by her family - Caroline Kettlewell made a terrible discovery: The only way to gain relief from her overpowering feelings of self-consciousness, discomfort, and alienation was to physically hurt herself. She began cutting her arms and legs in fifth grade, and continued into her twenties. Why would an intelligent young woman resort to such extreme measures? The first former cutter to tell her own story about living with and overcoming the disorder, Caroline Kettlewell has written an unforgettably poignant and shocking memoir of affliction and survival. More...

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Other Nonfiction Books

I have only read a couple of the books mentioned below. If you have read any of them, please give me you opinion.

Coping with Self-Mutilation

Alicia Clarke

Coping With Self-Mutilation

A growing number of young people are trying to cope with their problems and challenges by harming themselves physically. In this sensitively written book, teens and their parents can learn what self- mutilation is and why people harm themselves. More...

Buy from amazon.com

Cry of Pain

Mark Williams

Cry of Pain

The author has written a short description of the book.

Buy from amazon.com

Cutting

Steven Levenkron

Cutting

[Self injury] is not recognized as a clinical disorder and few understand it. This work has been written for the self-mutilator, parents, friends, and therapists and explains why the disorder manifests in self-harming behaviour and describes how the self- mutilator can be helped. More...

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Bodily Harm : The Breakthrough Healing Program for Self-Injurers

Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader with Jennifer Kingson Bloom

Bodily Harm : The Breakthrough Healing Program for Self-Injurers

"Two pioneers in the treatment of selfinjury problems offer a comprehensive look at this epidemic psychiatric disorder, in which people feel compelled to mutilate themselves, examining potential treatments, discussing case histories, and presenting success stories." More...

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Living on the Razor's Edge

Matthew D. Selekman and Bill O'Hanlon

Living on the Razor's Edge

"This text aims to provide therapists with a practice-orientated guidebook for working with self-harming adolescents, a growing and challenging treatment population." More...

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Man Against Himself

Karl Menninger

Man Against Himself

"Scholarly examination of man's need for self-respect and understanding, focuses on the nature and causes of his psychological war against himself." More...

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Self Injury: Psychotherapy With People Who Engage in Self-Inflicted Violence

Robin Connors

Self Injury: Psychotherapy With People Who Engage in Self-Inflicted Violence

"This volume offers compassionate guidelines to clinicians working with people who injure themselves. Among the issues addressed are understanding the various forms of self-injuring behaviour and those who engage in it, therapeutic interventions, and the therapist's own responses."

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Self-Mutilation: Theory, Research, and Treatment

Barent W. Walsh (Editor) and Paul M. Rosen (Editor)

Self-Mutilation: Theory, Research, and Treatment

"Covering the entire spectrum of self-mutilation, from wrist cutting to autocastration and self-inflicted eye removal, this is one of the few books since Karl Menninger's Man against Himself (1938) to comprehensively address this disturbing phenomenon."

Buy from amazon.com   Buy from Guilford Publications

Understanding Self-Injury: A Workbook for Adults

Kristy Trautmann and Robin Connors

Understanding Self-Injury: A Workbook for Adults

View sample pages on Amazon.com.

Available from Pittsburgh Action Against Rape.

Self-Injurious Behaviors: Assessment and Treatment

Daphne Simeon (Editor) and Eric Hollander (Editor)

Self-Injurious Behaviors: Assessment and Treatment

"This text examines methods of assessing and treating patients who injure themselves. The study covers neurobiology, phenomenology, psychotherapy and psychopharmacology."

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Self-Mutilation and Art Therapy: Violent Creation

Diana Milia

Self-Mutilation and Art Therapy: Violent Creation

"Examines the effect of art therapy interventions with clients who harm their bodies. Argues that using art as intervention supports the self-mutilating person's preference for ritualized symbolic action and their need to create transitional objects." More...

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Mutilating the Body: Identity in Blood and Ink

Kim Hewitt

Mutilating the Body: Identity in Blood and Ink

"This scholarly discussion places acts of body mutilation within a conceptual framework that explores their similarities and dissimilarities, but ultimately interprets them as acts that ask to be witnessed. The author explores self-mutilation through history and across cultural divisions." More...

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Self-Harm: A Psychotherapeutic Result

Fiona Gardner

Self-Harm: A Psychotherapeutic Result

"Self harm is worryingly common in young women, and is often used as a way of easing emotional suffering. Attacking the Body explores the issues involved from the perspective of a psychoanalytical psychotherapist. Fiona Gardner examines these issues through extensive clinical material and an analysis of the social and cultural influences behind self-harm. This book will be of interest to all those working with those who are harming themselves, including psychotherapists, school counselors, social workers and mental health clinicians."

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Women and Self-harm

Gerrilyn Smith, Dee Cox and Jacqui Saradjian

Women and Self-harm

"Hundreds of thousands of women self-mutilate, yet very little is known about the reasons for this widespread phenomenon or the experience of self-harming itself. Now, this powerful and accessible book gathers together the personal testimonies of a broad range of women who self-mutilate, explores the causes and effects of self- harming behavior and offers strategies for understanding, overcoming and healing from self-mutilation."

Visit the publisher's website.

Buy from amazon.com   Buy from amazon.co.uk

Secret Scars: Uncovering and Understanding the Addiction of Self-Injury

V. J. Turner

"What is self-injury? Why would people deliberately hurt themselves? Why can't they stop? What can I do to help? These question are asked and answered in Secret Scars, a revealing look at the addiction of self-injury. Self-injury is one of the fastest growing health problems among teenage girls today. Despite its prevalence, however, self-injury remains a behavior shrouded in mystery and misconceptions. SECRET SCARS is a grounbreaking book that demystifies self-injury by explaining it as an addiction."

"The author takes both an engaging and scholarly approach to help the reader understand the dynamics involved in self-injury. Not only does Turner share case histories and her personal struggle as a former self-injurer, she backs it up by citing studies, research findings, and clinical outcomes."

Buy from amazon.com

Encyclopedia of Psychological Disorders: Cutting the Pain Away

Carol Nadelson

"Examines the nature, causes, and treatment of self-mutilation and related disorders, as well as ways of helping someone who inflicts self-injuries."

Buy from amazon.com   Buy from amazon.co.uk

Cutting and Self-Mutilation: When Teens Injure Themselves

Kathleen Winkler

Due for release in 2003. More information on the author's website.

Buy from amazon.com

The 'Hurt Yourself Less' Workbook

Available from the National Self-Harm Network.

The Language of Injury: Comprehending Self-Mutilation

By Gloria Babiker and Lois Arnold.

Understanding Self-Harm

Available from Mind.