Self-injurious behavior
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- May
- 21
Self-injury  such as cutting, burning, hitting, etc.  is a sensitive topic. But that hasn’t kept the Westchester Youth Council from discussing it.
Last week, the group met with a registered nurse to explore some of the reason why teenagers inflict physical harm upon themselves  and what they can do to help.
Research has shown that teenagers deliberately harm themselves because physical pain can be easier to deal with than emotional pain. It is often a response to the stresses of day-to-day life and can escalate in frequency and severity.
People must understand, however, that self-injury is not a suicide attempt. Therefore, it needs to be handled in its own manner, according to nurse Bernadette Amicucci.
“The whole ides is to change everyone’s mentality,” she told the Youth Council.
The Youth Council now hopes to develop a proposal that would spread information about self-injury to Westchester County public schools. The goal is to improve the way school administrators handle self-injury.
“We hope that in the future, in addition to youth being able to help their peers, the public school system will be able to effectively aid people in this situation, instead of barraging them with claims of suicide,� said Maurine Koranteng, a junior on the Youth Council.
Check out “this site”:http://www.lifesigns.org.uk/ to learn more about the causes, signs and ways to deal with self-injury.
(Thanks to Renee McDougall for the information about the Youth Council meeting.)
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 2:06 pm by Diana Costello.
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This topic is very important and personal to me. As a ten year veteran of the classroom I am very familiar with how prevalent this issue is among my students. What few of my students know about me however, is that I too have struggled with self-injury for more than 30 years. Everytime I have come to school “hurt”, I have had a reasonable explaination for it. Unfortuantely, it was never the truth.
Through many months of intensive therapy, I have come to understand some of the motivating factors behind my behavior. As a result, I have just celebrated my first year of being injury free!
I have shared my story in the hopes that it will inspire others who are struggling to seek help for themselves. In addition, I hope that through me, others who are not as familiar with self-injury, will come to a greater understanding of the disorder and therefore be in a better position to help the kids they serve.
Information about my story can be found at:
http://www.vanessa-vega.com
Vanesa,
Thank you so much for your reply. I hope your book inspires others to better understand and address self-injury.