What’s the Harm? A Book for Young People who Self-Harm or Self-Injure

The Basement Project, 1997

This booklet, although aimed at young people, is a good starting point for anyone who wants to understand their self-injury, and for their families and friends. It begins with some facts about self-harm, setting straight some of the myths and misconceptions people have. The main section of the booklet looks at understanding self-harm, what kind of experiences lead people to hurt themselves and how it “works”, what self-harm does for people. Sections include “Letting out the scream inside” and “Taking my mind off it all” and all contain quotes from people who self-harm. There is basic information on staying safe, how to care for cuts and burns, and when to get medical help. It then goes on to look at “Things to do for yourself”, ways to explore and express feelings, taking care of yourself and treating yourself well, etc. It is stressed here that the authors are not saying ‘do this instead of self-harm’, that no one has the right to tell someone to stop. They offer suggestions of other ways of dealing with the pain so that people have more choices about how to cope. There are also sections on getting help, and on how friends can help.

This is the first thing I ever read about self-injury. Until then I had no idea people wrote about it! It helped me not to feel so alone and to understand more about why I was hurting myself. It’s very easy to read and completely non-judgmental and accepting of self harm as a way of coping, whilst also offering alternatives and giving hope. I would definitely recommend it, and at only about £3.50 it won’t break the bank!

The Self-Harm Help Book

Lois Arnold and Anne Magill, The Basement Project

This book has a similar approach to What’s the Harm? but is more detailed (70 pages rather than 27) and with a lot more focus on self-help. All the self-help ideas in the book have come from people who self-harm, and there is writing and drawing by people who self-harm throughout the book. The first section looks at understanding self-harm, and there are ideas for exploring “What self-harm is about for me”. The main part of the book is about the ways in which self-harm can help people cope. It is set out in sections such as “Needing to take some control” and “Exploding with anger”, including a section on “When you don’t know why”. This makes it easy to dip into the book at the point you most need at the time. Each section gives suggestions for other, less harmful ways to express the feelings and meet the needs that self-harm does. The last section is about building up good feelings about yourself and your body, looking at relationships with other people, and getting support. Again there are ideas for ways to do these things.

Every time I pick up this book I wonder why it’s so long since I last put it down. It’s full of useful ideas which are realistic and doable because they’ve been developed by other people who self-injure. On many occasions it has helped me just to look through the descriptions of the ways in which self-harm can work and the suggested activities. Even if I don’t have the energy to do the activities it can help me to understand more about what’s going on to make me want to self-injure, and give me hope that there are other ways of coping. When I have tried the activities I have found that I’ve learnt more about myself through doing them. I don’t think there is any easy “answer” to self-injury but the more tools we can get hold of that help a little bit sometimes, the more choices we have in how to cope. This book offers many of these tools.

Self-Harm: Perspectives from Personal Experience

Edited by Louise Roxanne Pembroke
Survivors Speak Out, 34 Osnaburgh Street, London, NW1 3ND

This book is worth reading for the cartoons alone, which greatly appeal to my black sense of humour! Apparently it grew from a conference about self-injury held in 1989. It contains perspectives from several people who self injure, some of which are taken from speeches at the conference. Having been written by survivors of the psychiatric system the focus is on experiences (unfortunately many negative) of treatment received from medical/mental health professionals. The book is not merely negative (but don’t stop reading half way through or you may get that impression!). Louise Pembroke, the editor, stresses the importance of the expertise we gain from personal experience. We are the experts on our self-injury and what helps and doesn’t help us. We have so much to learn from one another, and ourselves, as do those who work with us. Reading this book makes me want to work for better services for those of us who self injure, and begin to believe that change is possible.

Book reviews by Zin