Myth busters on self-harming behaviours
Self-harming is NOT attention-seeking. Research has found that most people who self-harm struggle to seek help for themselves.
Self-harming is NOT just a girl thing. Both genders can have self-harming tendencies that lead into self-harming behaviours.
Self-harming is NOT restrictive to youth subculture. People of any age, culture or faith can self-harm.
Self-harming is NOT pleasure seeking. People who self-harm report it releases emotional distress through pain.
Self-harming does NOT mean suicidal. Self-harming is sometimes used by people as an alternate to suicide in difficult times.
Why would someone hurt themselves?
Self-harming refers to behaviours that cause pain to the body including cutting, burning, and punching. The behaviour stems from wanting to relieve emotional distress, to cope with difficult emotions.
The self-harm cycle references emotional suffering – emotional overload – self-harm – temporary relief – shame and guilt – (back to) emotional suffering and the cycle repeats. Very quickly, self-harming can become the first response to dealing with hard things in life. Unfortunately, self-harming is like a band aid, it doesn’t fix the underlying causes and worse, can create further problems.
How can counselling help?
Seeking professional help from a qualified and registered counsellor is a safe way to explore the reasons behind self-harming without re-traumatising.
Counselling can tackle the issues preventing positive mental health. Some issues commonly associated with self-harming behaviours include:
- Experiencing traditional or cyberbullying
- Living in a high conflict household, observing parents in constant distress
- Living with multiple conditions including eating disorders, personality disorders or behavioural disorders
- Experiencing symptoms of depression and/or anxiety
- Traumatic events either first hand experiences or collective traumas
- Lack of social connections
- Substance abuse
Counselling considers the uniqueness of the person in the room. No one person is the same as the next, therefore I use an integrated approach that incorporates behavioural, narrative, Rogerian and solutions focused therapies. In a counselling session, we could use:
- The behavioural therapy of DBT to explore your experiences with bullying,
- Utilise solution focused therapy to practice conflict resolution strategies you could use with family members,
- Incorporate narrative therapy to validate your experiences living with co-morbidities or learn new skills to build up your resilience,
- Use the behavioural therapy of CBT to alleviate the heaviness of depression or the chaos of anxiety,
- Explore and develop your communication and social skills to facilitate making friends,
- Learn about urge surfing and addictions,
- Or start to find safety and stabilisation – the first step in trauma therapies.
When you invest in building up your mental health, strengthen your resilience, develop good relationships and increase in school connectedness, the literature strongly suggests that you will find your self-harming behaviours decreases.
If your aim is to expand your coping skills and minimise your reliance on self-harming behaviours, a short-term block of counselling might just be what you are looking for. Take a chance and book a session today. Let’s start to build a life you want to live without self-harming.
To make an appointment with Cassia, you can Book Online. Alternatively, you can call Vision Psychology Brisbane on (07) 3088 5422.
Reference:
Islam, M. I., Kabir, E., Khanam, R., & Yunus, F. M. (2021). Evaluating risk and protective factors for suicidality and self-harm in Australian adolescents with traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimizations. American Journal of Health Promtion. 36(1). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171211034105
Arensman, E., Branningan, R., Butler, E., Clarke, M., Cooke, L., McEvoy, D., & Walsh, C. (2023). Risk and protective factors for self-harm in adolescents and young adults: an umbrella review of systematic reviews. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 168. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2023.10.017
Mental Health Foundation. (2025). The truth about self-harm: for young people and their friends and families. https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-02/MHF%20the%20truth%20about%20self%20harm%20SINGLE%20PAGES%20%28002%29.pdf