Self injury treatment is available for people who want to stop cutting, burning, or otherwise self-mutilating. The road to recovery after self-injurious behavior can be long, but in time healthy responses take the place of addictive cutting or other harmful behavior.
Self-Injury Help Begins with the Individual
Self-harm is an addictive behavior, and like any addiction, effective treatment is only possible if the individual wants to change. Family and friends can be supportive, but no one can force the individual to accept treatment.
Psychotherapy and Cutting Treatment
Cutting help usually begins with some form of psychotherapy. The goal of self-injury treatment is to teach patients positive ways of dealing with emotions and stressors, and use these techniques instead of self-harm.
Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches practical approaches to emotional problems. Patients learn coping strategies, including ways to control emotions, maintain healthy relationships, and stop self-injurious behavior before it starts. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most common choices for self-injurious behavior treatment.
Other self-injury help options include dialectical behavior therapy (a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness techniques), and psychodynamic therapy, which assumes unresolved conflicts in the patient’s past cause self-injurious behavior.
Psychotherapeutic self-injury treatment includes individual and group therapy options. Family therapy may also be employed, which helps family members better understand the nature of self-injurious behavior while teaching the whole family healthy responses to emotions. (A family environment where expressions of negative emotions are stifled or discouraged is sometimes at the root of self-injuring disorders).
Medication for Self-Injurious Behavior
Cutting and self-mutilation cannot be treated with medication. Self-injury, however, often manifests with other mental disorders, including depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Medication may be used to treat these disorders. As symptoms of depression or other mental illness improve, a corresponding decrease in self-harm sometimes occurs.
Emergency Treatment and Self-Injury
Self-harm can lead to serious injuries that require emergency treatment. Self-mutilation injuries may be mistaken for suicide attempts by concerned family or friends, and treated as such by medical staff. Unfortunately, suicide prevention and self-injury help are very different therapies.
Emergency room staff occasionally reacts negatively to self-injurious behavior, and may resent treating self-inflicted injuries when “real” injuries require treatment. This response may be combated, to some degree, by reminding staff that self-injury is an impulse control disorder. Even so, lack of understanding surrounding the causes of self-harm can lead to confusion and resentment in the ER.
People who endanger themselves with severe cutting or self-injury may be temporarily admitted to psychiatric hospitals where they can receive treatment in a safe environment. Most cutting treatment, however, takes place in outpatient facilities.
Self-Help for Self Injury
While “home remedies” for self-mutilation exist, they are unlikely to provide lasting results, in part due to the addictive nature of self-injury. Self-injurious behavior requires treatment administered by health professionals.
This is not to say that self-help doesn’t play an important role in self-injury treatment. The patient’s desire to switch to healthier, non-addictive emotional responses is vital, and teaching self-help strategies to patients is one of the primary roles of self-mutilation psychotherapy. With treatment, it’s possible to eliminate the symptoms of cutting and other self-mutilating acts.
Resources
Davis, J. (Retrieved 30 September, 2009). Cutting and Self-Harm: Warning Signs and Treatment
Mayo Clinic. (Retrieved 8 October, 2009). Self-Injury / Cutting: Treatment and Drugs.
Disclaimer: The information contained within this article is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to be a substitute in any way for care and treatment by a qualified health professional.
Michael McGrath - Michael McGrath began providing web content shortly after finishing his graduate degree in English at the University of Alberta. His broad ...
Join the Conversation