Bleeding to Ease the Pain: Cutting, Self-Injury, and the Adolescent Search for Self Plante, Lori G.

Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain upon themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youths, as we see in this revealing work. As author Plante discusses here, the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a growing teenage method for easing emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb and vent the despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others.

DOI: 10.1336/0275990621 Mouse over the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to learn more about this book or related books published by Greenwood Publishing Group. Visit the Greenwood Publishing Group page for this title: http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/C9062.aspx

Bleeding to Ease the Pain: Cutting, Self-Injury, and the Adolescent Search for Self Series: Abnormal Psychology Hardback, 200 pages, $49.95 Copyright ©2007, Praeger Publishers ISBN: 0-275-99062-1 DOI: 10.1336/0275990621

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