Self Mutilation can be defined as any type of harm caused to oneself without a purpose of suicide. Such incidents mostly include cutting of skin with sharp objects like razors and knives. There has become more and more such cases reposted for the recent decades.

The phenomenon is most frequent either among teenage females or people suffering from borderline personality disorder or dissociative disorders. It is characteristic to these people to be sexually abused in childhood and having also some eating disorders as well. The condition is not the one that necessarily leads to suicide but frequently it does, at least to the attempt. In some way a desire to kill oneself and to hurt are connected but they have a little different grounds: the former comes from the feeling of hopelessness and rejection while the latter from the feelings of guilt, or, rather, shame; it may be also an attempt to ease tension that a person feels.

You can suspect a person is liable to self mutilation if he or she tends to wear long-sleeve clothes even if the weather is hot. Such people also require privacy a lot and they need it more than other people, it seems. They are also usually depressed.

There exist some presuppositions of why a person feels a desire to cause harm to himself or herself. Some think that this comes from the necessity to get rid of such strong negative emotions like shame, guilt or anger. The inability to adequately show them or the fear to do it can take such a disguise. There is also a theory and some people prove that self mutilation helps to relieve anxiety end tension. It is also a way to redirect your anger from someone to yourself and therefore relieve it. It is also a way to attract attention and to show that assistance and support is needed. There are also theories that this condition can be connected with the disbalance of serotonin system of the brain. This makes such people more aggressive and impulsive; and causing harm to oneself makes the brain to release endorphins and therefore the level of distress lessens and a person feels relieved. Nevertheless this is all fraught with certain consequences and a person may become dependant on the habit.

That is why this condition is dangerous. As soon as a person becomes dependant it may grow into a serious addiction and evoke changes in behavior. In this case a professional help is frequently required. The best way is to apply for a person who has experience with cases of self mutilation and knows how to handle it.

There are certain types of therapies used. One of the effective techniques for lessening of stress and tension is a self relaxation technique. Group therapy is a useful thing as a person will be able to see himself or herself in a perspective of people who feel the same and stop thinking as if his/her case is a unique one. Family therapy is beneficial for both a patient and the relatives; it is able to provide with better mutual understanding and support. In some cases anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medications can be recommended to a person. There is also one more quite effective method to cope with the condition and this is meditation. This is a good way to learn how to identify and control own feelings. Finally, the most recent method is in-patient hospitalization treatment. It presupposes a multi-disciplinary team approach and makes a person feel a lot better.

As it has already been mentioned self mutilation will more likely occur in people with other emotional disorders, history of sexual abuse and suicidal thoughts. The less experience of abuse a person had in early years, the less is an inclination to suicide or any emotional illness the better is the prognosis that a person will not be affected with the desire to hurt him/herself. But it is very frequent that these things cannot be easily controlled. But one thing can be helped – and that is children abuse. It is something that requires to be stopped as every child deserves a happy childhood in order to grow up a happy person.