self-harm

Self-harm is not usually an attempt at taking our own life, but a way of expressing deep emotional feelings, such as low self-esteem. It is also a way to cope with traumatic events or situations, such as the death of a loved one, or an abusive relationship. Self-harm is not an illness, it is an expression of personal distress.

Our self-harm Blogs

Psychosocial therapy effective in reducing self-harm, suicide and all-cause death

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Elly O'Brien
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Elly O’Brien summarises a large Danish cohort study, which investigates the short-term and long-term effects of psychosocial therapy for people after deliberate self-harm.

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Varenicline and the risk of neuropsychiatric adverse events and death

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Natasha Clarke publishes her debut Mental Elf blog about a new systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the risk of neuropsychiatric adverse events associated with the smoking cessation drug varenicline.

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Cyberbullying and mental health in young people

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Elly O'Brien
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Elly O’Brien summarises a recent US survey of adolescents, which investigates the relationship between cyberbullying, mental health and substance use problems, and the moderating role of family dinners.

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Preventing serious adverse outcomes in schizophrenia

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Stephen Wood
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People diagnosed with schizophrenia are 7.4 times more likely to be convicted of violent offences, 8.1 times more likely to die prematurely, and 20.7 times more likely to kill themselves.

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Psychiatric illnesses and some chronic physical illnesses are associated with an increased risk of self-harm and suicide

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Last month, the Department of Health published the ‘Closing the Gap’ report, which highlighted the importance of better integration of physical and mental health care at every level. The report specifically flagged up the need for frontline services to respond better to people who self-harm, and cited statistics that emphasise the cyclical nature of the [read the full story…]

The largest ever study of self-harm in prisons: prevalence, risk, clustering and subsequent suicide

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New research published today in the Lancet shows that up to one in four women prisoners in England and Wales self-harm every year. The largest study of self-harm in prisons also reports that female prisoners are four times more likely to self-harm than male inmates. Previous systematic reviews have investigated self-harm in prisons (Lohner, 2007 and Dixon-Gordon, [read the full story…]

Talking therapy for teenagers (MBT-A) reduces self-harm and depression in self harming teens over a 12 month period

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In adults there is a growing body of evidence for psychotherapeutic interventions such as Transference Focussed Psychotherapy, Mentalization-Based Treatment and Dialectic Behavioural Therapy for patients who self harm. In the teenage population, there has been limited evidence to show that interventions are better than the treatment already provided. MBT has developed from psychodynamic psychotherapy and [read the full story…]

The latest evidence from NICE on the longer-term management of self-harm

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The NICE guideline on the longer-term care and treatment of self-harm was published in November 2011 and contains research published up until January 2011. A group of experts including psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers has compiled an evidence update looking at the high quality research that has been published in the last two years (from [read the full story…]

Nearly half of the young people who present to hospital with self-harm are not given essential psychosocial evaluations

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Last September I blogged about a cohort study in the Lancet that highlighted the links between self-harm and poor physical health. This same dataset (drawn from over 30,000 patients from 6 hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby from 2000-7) has now spawned a longitudinal study published in the European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry journal. This [read the full story…]