by Gavin Wyatt

Created on: October 12, 2009   Last Updated: October 14, 2009

Self harm has been commonly thought of as an outlet for teenage females struggling with a new flood of emotions, with the only treatment being lectures from parents about the possibilities of death. The parent's number one fear is suicide, and the emotional reasons for the actions are usually not addressed. This approach obviously is not working with the numbers of people that self harm on a steady rise. This is especially true for males. The numbers regarding male self harm are believed to be skewed because much of their self harm can be done in socially acceptable ways and are not always shown as direct physical harm, like cutting. Self harm can manifest as an overall disregard for oneself and a propensity to frequently cause ones body harm.

One percent of the population, roughly two million people living in America have purposely injured or causes themselves pain to deal with being overwhelmed and distressed. That is approximately the entire population of the city of Toledo, or on the east coast, the city of Buffalo. The desperate need of these individuals to regulate emotions through extreme pain is a very strong impulse that gives the afflicted immediate, but misguided relief. With heavy treatment, the recovery has shown to be slow and extensive. Treatment facilities like S.A.F.E., a nationally recognized treatment approach, have had success with treatments showing a steady decrease of symptoms over a two year period.

The number of people struggling with this disorder is on the rise. In a UK study, they found that almost 7% of 15 - 16 year olds had self harmed in the last year, with 12% of those being taken to the hospital for injuries. An internet survey of 2,875 college aged students, published in the journal of Pediatrics, showed that 17% of college aged students had inflicted self harm. Of the 17%, a large portion (roughly 75%), had done it more than once. The studies' numbers are surprising to many because most people that self harm work very hard not to show the evidence of self harm and very few are ever treated.

The definition of self harm syndrome is the intent to do your own body physical damage or pain without the intent of suicide. The separation of a suicide and self harm was made by clinicians and researchers, because it was found that self harm was more a coping mechanism for living life, and not ending it. There is the potential for accidental death in some types of self harm with the very real concern being that younger people are less

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