Seeking Solutions to Self-injury: A Guide for Young People

Self-injury can be a confusing behaviour, and it can be really worrying when someone you know self-injures. This guide was developed to help young people understand self-injury, and to better care for their friends who might self-injure.
We have been working for many years to research self-injury in various ways to better understand it, and how we could help. However, in preparing this guide specifically, we consulted over 40 experienced health care professionals and over 60 young people who self-injure. By investigating the needs, desires, attitudes and experiences of young people, we think we gained a good understanding of self-injury, and what young people need from people who care about them.
Our focus here is on self-injury with no wish to die (that is Non-Suicidal Self-Injury or NSSI). We do not include drug use, alcohol abuse, anorexia or bulimia as self-injury; although we understand it can be argued they are forms of self-abuse or self-injury.
Our focus is primarily on damaging the outside of the body to relieve bad feelings inside. This may include cutting, scratching, burning, hitting a part of the body on a hard surface, or deliberately interfering with wound healing.
This booklet explains self-injury and provides some useful tips and resources for young people. We hope you find the information useful.