ABSTRACT
This book is about uncovering the different meanings behind self-harm - a term used to describe self-inflicted physical attacks on the body. The central focus in this book is on cutting the surface of the skin, but there is also some reference to attacks such as burning and hitting the body. Implicit in the definition is an understanding that the body is going to be deliberately, and usually habitually, harmed rather than destroyed or killed, and that it is also a harming of the self. So why would people turn on their bodies in this way, repeatedly inflicting such painful damage on themselves?
