Cutting and self injury (also known as self-harm) behaviors are things people do purposefully to hurt their own body in an attempt to cover up or not deal with painful emotions or situations. Counseling and therapy for people who self-harm provides them with other more healthy ways to cope with their emotions and the stressors of life.
There are many ways to self-harm. Common self-harm behaviors include scraping, biting, burning, hitting or cutting. Whatever its form, self-harm is a coping method to avoid dealing with painful emotions. Particularly with teenagers, cutting and self-injury gives them a distraction when they start to feel out of control. They may not be able to control what is happening around them, but they can control what happens to them by cutting themselves or engaging in other self-harm behaviors. The injury produces an endorphin “high” that soothes or calms them down providing them a quick relief for a painful issue they would rather not deal with.
How can Self-Harm Counseling and Therapy help?
Our experienced therapists are dedicated to helping people learn to love and express themselves. For people who self-harm this means developing alternative strategies to deal with pain and learning to understand and manage difficult feelings so that there is no longer a desire to self-harm.
We offer an afterschool S.A.F.E. Alternatives 12 week group therapy class in our St. Peters, MO office specifically designed to help teen girls ages 14-18 learn to overcome harmful self inflicting behaviors or a negative body image. For more information on this program, contact our group facilitator Kate Maus.
If you live in St. Peters, O’Fallon, or St. Charles, MO area and are looking to get help for cutting or self-injury behavior, we can help.