This practical guide to harm-reduction is for anyone who has a supporting role or relationship with someone who hurts themself, whether in a professional or informal context. It is also a useful resource for people who self-injure, to help them to explore their experiences and to keep themselves safe. Based on interviews with people who self-injure and frontline practitioners and service managers who work with them, it explores why people self-injure, debunks myths and misconceptions about self-injury, explains self-injury in the contexts of human embodiment and a social model approach to distress and illness, and offers practical strategies for responding in meaningful ways, including using creative practices and harm-reduction. A final chapter offers guidance on how to write a harm-reduction policy for self-injury that can be used across any health, education and social services setting. This is an essential book that promotes better understanding and thus better responses to self-injury, brought to life with the words of people with first-hand experience of self-injury, for whom it is, or has been, an important coping mechanism. The book closes with a short account of Zest, a voluntary sector organisation in Ireland, whose success with people who self-injure demonstrates what the guidance in this book looks like when put into practice, and that it really does work. Contents: Introduction 1. Self-injury essentials: understanding before intervention 2. Embodying distress: the functions of self-injury 3. The inner world: what is it like being you? 4. A social model: context is everything 5. Responding helpfully: embodied and social interventions 6. Staying safe: harm-reduction 7. Policy: making best practice happen 8. Going the distance: a case study of Zest (Northern Ireland) Appendices: Policy examples and learning exercises About the Author: Dr Kay Inckle is a course convener in the sociology of health and medicine at the London School of Economics and Political Science. For a number of years she worked as a service-provider in a range of health and social care contexts supporting both adults and young people, and these experiences inspired her PhD and post-doctoral research. From 2009-2012 she ran a self-injury training service which specialized in delivering programmes based on a holistic and harm-reduction approach to self-injury. She remains passionate about transforming attitudes and practice around self-injury and she has a number of publications in the field including her previous book with PCCS books Flesh Wounds? New Ways of Understanding Self-Injury. |