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Hey everyone! This weeks video I wanna talk a little bit about self-harm and self-injury behaviors.
and the reason that I want to do this
is because not only do i have a lot of people out there
and they also have self-harm behaviors
but I've been hearing from a lot of you struggle with self-harm
and you want more information about that.
And in my practice I also have a lot of clients
who maybe don't even have an eating disorder
and have self-harm behaviors. So I know
that it's very prevalent. You're not alone.
I have a lot of posts on my website every week about this.
And So I'm making a commitment to put out videos about
self-harm: why we do it, where it comes from
and how we can get help.
So Stay Tuned!
So like I said this week, I'd like to talk a little bit about
self-harm. And I know that before I have done videos
talking about the motivation behind it and
how/why we use it as a way to cope, how it kind of
relates in the same way that eating disorders do as a form of self-harm.
But today I kind of want to dive a little bit deeper
and I want to recommend a few books.
Because in my research, I know that a lot of therapists
and a lot of clinicians out there are
not as comfortable with self-harm
and they don't understand it
and they can actually make us feel really misunderstood
and really frustrated when we finally reach out for help.
So part of what I'm hoping to do with my channel
as I'm sure many of you have noticed, is not only
to talk to you, the people struggling with this
and all the different types of mental health problems that there are
and break through the stigma of it and make information more available.
But I also want to create content that is helpful
for other clinicians. So that we, when we do reach out
for help, people are knowledgeable and they are understanding
and they really get where we are coming from.
And they have done the appropriate amount of research so that they can help us, right?
So I know that's a lot to take in, but I'm trying to do a lot of things
by making these videos.
So today, I want to talk a little bit about why
we self-harm. And I know that many of you do it
for various reasons and I know that I'm not going to cover
everything. And I know that many of you are going to say
"Well, Kati, I don't do it for those reasons. And you're really wrong."
And that's probably true. For you it could be very different.
But these are some of the most common reasons that we
find out there. And one of the greatest books ever
is a book called "Cutting" by Steven Lekenkron...
Levenkron, I said that wrong. And this is really great
for clinicians to read because it helps describe what it feels
like to be the person who is using self-harm as a coping skill.
But it can also, if you're out there and you're feeling
misunderstood and you're a self-harmer, this can also
help because it lets you know you're not alone.
because there are a lot of people who do this behavior
And the first thing that I want to talk a little bit about is how
the actual behavior of self-harming takes shape.
And something that I think a lot of us lose sight of is the fact
that our self-harm is usually a secondary reaction.
So we have depression, anxiety, we might have an eating disorder. We may have OCD
We may have borderline personality. We may have a lot of things.
We could have any diagnosis across the board and we
start self-harming as the result. Does that make sense?
Now usually, we will use self-harm as a way to manage
things that have happened to us
or experiences that we have had. So we use self-harm
as an outlet for that. So that's why it's usually secondary,
because whatever's happened to us may have
created anxiety. It may have created depression. And we feel so depressed or anxious
we don't know what to do with all those thoughts and feelings
and so we self-harm as a way to release that.
And that's why it's secondary.
Does that make sense? Okay.
That's kind of how self-harm develops at the beginning
when we first do it or we first think about it. It's usually as
the result of another diagnoses. Now as it takes shape
and I'm going to reference my amazing book, cause this guy is awesome.
If he's on youtube I would love to interview you cause you're amazing.
So he talks about the benefits of self-wounding.
And he calls it self-wounding, which I kind of...I don't know
I kind of like that. I like self-injury, self-harm because
everybody does it differently. And an interesting fact that he
talked about was the fact that men and women tend to self-wound
in different ways. I thought that was kind of also interesting.
Another video, right?
So the first thing he talks about is being pains as being the goal
of our self-harm. And I know for many of you in my other video I said, "it's not always all about the pain."
And a lot of you were like "yeah, it is Kati. Shut up. It is for me." Right?
And pain can be the goal .And he says that
it's because, and I agree with this "if we try to insulate ourselves
from all pain we become numb." Right?
And many of us feel that we've repressed all these things that have happened
to us. We feel really numb. So we cut
or we burn or we do whatever. we self-harm to feel
that pain, to finally feel something because we've been so numb
for so long, right? so pain is our primary goal.
So that's one option that he's saying the benefits that we find, the benefits that
come from self-harm. Now the next one is cutting or self-harming as an act of anger.
And I find this to be something that I fi..that I see mostly in my practice
I have a lot of patients who do this. And they actually use
the self-harm to feel anger, to like experience the anger inward.
When we're really angry out. Does that make sense? I know it's kind of confusing.
So if we're actually really angry at someone. Let's say our mother is really
emotional abusive. She yells at us a lot and we get really upset.
We're actually angry at her, but we don't want to actually hurt her or upset her
because she's always upset potentially. And so we anger in.
So when we inflict pain on our self through self-harm, we're actually
experiencing the anger. And that's our main reason
is to fell the anger and express it that way. ok. hope that's clear
And if you have any questions as always leave your comments below
You can follow me on twitter and ask me questions there.
You can hope on my website and post about how you related to this or
didn't relate to this or whatever. And everybody is on there to help one another.
So feel free to find me on all of my different fabulous five sites, ok
Now the next one is an act of self-medication and this
I just have a client currently who is doing, utilizing self-harm as this.
And she's just started self-harming. And we all know
when we hurt ourselves our bodies release endorphins and adrenaline and all those
like kind of feel good chemicals in our body so that the pain
isn't so bad. And it's actually a coping skill that our body has so that we can
let's say we fall down and break our leg or hurt ourselves, we can get up
and get help. It's the survival instinct. It's almost like the fight or flight
and all those little instincts that our body has.
When we self-harm we still get the release of endorphins
and so the same way that an addict or an alcoholic of some sort would utilize a substance
to "self medicate" for the pain they feel, we can use self-harm in that way.
because we are self medicating through the endorphin release.
So that's another kind of reason that we might use it and I hope that makes sense.
That one to me makes the most sense; probably because i have a current client that's doing that
And then the next one that this amazing book talks about is
kind of the dissociative reason. And this happens a lot.
Another great book, not to over book you,
"The Courage to Heal Workbook" which I've talked about before.
People usually end up doing this dissociative self-harming as a way to cope with
*** abuse that has happened in our past. Or even physical abuse. Just people who are kind of
have been through a really bad experience when they were younger
and they will use self-harm because a lot of times, and I want to
explain it exactly the way he talks about it. He talks about dissociative disorder
and how it relates and dissociative cutting. And so we will utilize
self-harming as a way to kind of go away. And we will just,
We'll hurt ourselves or harm ourselves in some way and then because of the pain
and endorphins and all the things I've kind of talked about we will dissociate.
And it's almost like a PTSD like reaction. Our mind will associate the cutting with
whatever has happened to us in the past, our abuse past, and it will
immediately trigger that dissociative state. And it's kind of our own substance.
I kind of think of this as almost like people that would utilize drugs to go away
we utilize self-harming and that dissociation that we have to kind of
take a break from what's going on in our mind because it can be really overwhelming
and going through self-harm and going through an abuse situation.
The self-harm is a way to actually cope with that and take a break from
all that negativity and all the horrible thoughts and memories that we have.
Ok, so that's another reason.
Now, the last one I really want to talk about is the person who does self-harm
for... they call it the "exhibitionist", that's what he calls it in his book
or secondary gain. Now I know many of you worry like
"If I go in someone is going to think I'm doing this for attention. I'm not doing this for attention."
And many of us aren't. But there are some of us who actually self-harm
as a way to show others how much we're hurting. And so by using self-harm and doing
it in places like on our arms and our legs where people may see it
And let's say we've just self-harmed a few days ago and we just wear short sleeves
and we don't put any band aids or cover up or anything, we don't do anything.
We're in a way doing that to get attention for how bad we're hurting
because we want people to know. And there is no shame in that.
I don't want anybody to be embarrassed if that's how you feel
because we...it's like silent screaming. I tell a lot of my eating disorder clients
I'm like, Using an eating disorder is silent screaming. We're so upset and we're going through so much
our self-harm is us screaming for help, for anybody to listen, for someone to understand
And there is nothing wrong with that. Ok?
And like I always say, leave your comments below let me know if this resonates with you
If you like me kind of delving deeper into self-harm and why we do it and what, you know, how it develops over time
and how we can get help. Because there is help out there and there are great therapists
and there are great clinicians there to assist us and to walk us though this
and to process through, I mean utilizing this, if you've had abuse in your past
This is an amazing book and having a therapist who will utilize that with you and have you work through it
can really give us the relief that we're wanting. That's what the self-harm is all about
We're trying to find a way to express what we feel and what we're going through
And there is nothing wrong with that. Okay?
There's a lot of people out there doing that and having a hard time expressing what's going on
and this is our way of expressing. We just have to work through it and find a healthy way to express.
Does that make sense?
So stay tuned! I will be putting out more videos. I will be reading more of this amazing book.
And there are also some great workbooks you can hop online and get as well
and I will put links down in the description as well as there is a widget on my website
If you go to katimorton.com it's an Amazon widget and I link a lot of the books that I talk about
so that you can find them easily. I haven't written any books on self-harm, but I'm working on that kind of thing
but these are great tools that I use as a clincian and that I also refer my clients out to
So make sure you reach out and get some help becuase there are people out there that can listen
and offer support. And our community is growing; we are all hear to listen and offer support
So keep working with me and we will keep fighting the urges together towards a healthy mind and a healthy body
Subtitles by the Amara.org community