Who engages in self-injury?

• There is no simple portrait of a person who intentionally injures him/herself. This behavior is not limited by gender, race, education, age, sexual orientation, socio-economics, or religion. However, there are some commonly seen factors:
• Self-injury more commonly occurs in adolescent females.
• Many self-injurers have a history of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
• Many self-injurers have co-existing problems of substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder (or compulsive alone), or eating disorders.
• Self-injuring individuals were often raised in families that discouraged expression of anger, and tend to lack skills to express their emotions.
• Self-injurers often lack a good social support network.

What are the types of self-injury?

The most common ways that people self-injure are:

• Cutting
• Burning (or “branding” with hot objects)
• Picking at skin or re-opening wounds
• Hair-pulling (trichotillomania)
• Hitting (with hammer or other object)
• Bone-breaking
• Head-banging (more often seen in autistic, severely retarded or psychotic people)
• Multiple piercing or multiple tattooing may be a kind of self-injury, especially if pain or stress relief is a factor.