Self-Injury in Children: Cutting Burning and other Secret Scars

Could your child be intentionally cutting or burning herself without your knowledge?  It's called self-injury or self-mutilation, and you need to know about it, because the practice is on the rise.  It's defined as a deliberate harming of your own body without a conscious attempt at suicide.  It's amazingly common -- believe it or not, in a Massachusetts survey, almost a fifth of the students reported that they had injured themselves on purpose in the last year!

Join host Dr. Winnie King and meet a young woman who is struggling with this very problem - and hear from her parents about how they cope.  We'll also talk about what to do if you suspect your own child might be hurting herself - how you can find out, and how you can stop it.

Guests:

• Thea Rowan -- Age 15
• Rudd and Susan Rowan -- Parents of Thea
• Barent  (Barry) Walsh, PhD -- Executive Director, The Bridge of Central Massachusetts; Academic Positions: Adjunct Faculty, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work; Research Faculty, Simmons College Graduate School of Social Work; Co-Author: Self Mutilation: Theory, Research and Treatment; Other Published works: Treating Self-injury: A Practical Guide; Self-Mutilation, an essay in the Encyclopedia of Criminal and Deviant Behavior.
• Alec L. Miller, PsyD -- Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychology; Director, Adolescent Depression and Suicide Program; Associate Director, Psychology Internship Training Program -- all at Montefiore Medical Center, New York City; Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Adjunct Clinical Supervisor, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University; Adjunct Training Faculty, Cognitive Therapy Center; Relevant Published works: "Feasibility of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Para Suicidal Adolescent Inpatients," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

TIPS:

How do you talk to your kid if you think they may be self-injuring?

Talk to them with a low-key, dispassionate demeanor.  Remember, they are having trouble dealing with uncomfortable emotions, so yelling and getting angry is not going to help - they will just try to hide it even more.   Take an approach of respectful inquiry; ask," What does it do for you? You must be so distressed.  You must be frightened." Try not to judge the behavior, show some acceptance for their emotions. 

What do you do if they deny it?

Let them know that you believe the denial is not true, and you want to give them some time to think.  Let them know you'll talk about this more - they're not in trouble, you won't be mad at them, but it's not ok for them to keep doing this.

RESOURCES: 

National Mental Health Association
http://www.nmha.org/
800-969-NMHA

Safe Alternatives
http://www.safe-alternatives.com/

Treating Self-injury - A Practical Guide
by Barent W. Walsh, PhD

Bodily Harm
by Wendy Lader, PhD and Karen Conterio

Can You See My Pain?
(Video shown on this episode of Keeping Kids Healthy provided by NEWIST/CESA7)
800-633-7445

Winnie King, M.D.