ABSTRACT
Self-harm and suicide are often conflated together particularly when undertaking risk assessments within mental health and psychological work but also within health policy initiatives. Self-harm is a term which describes the many different ways in which self-inflicted physical attacks are carried out on a person’s body. While the self-harmer holds onto the linkage the suicide tries to split it into two irretrievably. The suicide is breaking the psyche/soma linkage, using the body as the theatre on which to act it out with an intended finality, while the self-harmer is trying to keep the connection going. Suicide is not intended to be repeated. Self-harming is always about repetition even if in the end it may lead, by escalation or accident, to death. The likelihood of suicide attempts is greater in individuals who have a long history of self-injury, use a greater number of methods, and report absence of physical pain during self-harming or being harmed by others.
