Sometimes, people use self harm to cope with stress and other mental health issues. Around five percent of people at any given time practice self-harm. While a person who practices self-harm tries to hide this behavior from the people they love, a parent or loved one might notice the signs.
Each year, more than 300,000 people go to the emergency room to treat self-harm injuries. To discover a friend or family member practices self-harm can be scary and overwhelming. However, some more information and basic facts can help a family member or loved one help the person practicing self-harm.
Self-harm is the practice of a person hurting themselves when they can’t cope with the feelings, memories, or stress they have in their life. In many cases, the person cuts themselves in places that are readily visible. Other people might punch walls or practice different types of self-harm. These people need self-harm treatment to learn new coping methods to avoid self-harm in the future.
Many people who practice self-harm do so as a coping mechanism. It might be they can’t deal with the stress in their life, or they can’t adequately express the emotions that they feel. Sometimes, a traumatic event has occurred in the person’s past, and thinking about or reliving the moment leads the person to self-harm. Therapy for self-harm is usually the only way to overcome it.
It isn’t always easy to recognize the signs of self-harm, but it’s essential to know signs of self harming behavior. These self harm signs include:
If someone worries that they’re struggling with self-harm, they must seek treatment. A loved one or family member might notice some of these signs and want to help. Treatment can be effective.
Therapy for self-harm can take many forms, and the therapist works with the patient to find the right individual approach. In some cases, self-harm treatment can involve more than one type of therapy. It may take a combination of self-harm treatments to help the patient recover and develop new coping skills.
In some cases, the patient struggling with self-harm has a co-occurring mental health disorder, and the patient needs medication to control it. Some therapists might prescribe medication to help minimize the person’s anxiety. Medication is almost always a temporary measure, and the therapist will recommend ending the medication when the patient learns the coping skills needed to deal with the person’s desire to self-harm.
When a person has past traumatic events or has trouble expressing their emotions, working one-on-one with a therapist gives them the skills to examine the past or build new ways of dealing with emotions other than self-harm. Individual therapy is almost always used as a self-harm treatment, and the therapist may recommend different types of therapy to bolster the patient’s efforts.
The therapist might recommend that the patient attend group therapy as part of their self-harm treatment. The group consists of other people struggling with mental health disorders and some with self-harm. Group therapy for self-harm can help the person see that they aren’t alone and learn the stories of others. Group therapy can also offer new insights and ways of coping with their emotions or past traumas.
If the person dealing with self-harm has close ties with their family or still lives at home, it might be necessary that the entire family come into the office for therapy. This type of self-harm treatment can teach parents and other loved ones ways in which they can help the person struggling with self-harm overcome it. Family therapy can set the patient up for success..
It can hard for a person who has a child or loved one who self-harms to know what to do and what actions to take. There are things that a loved one can do to help the person struggling with self-harm. Most steps a loved one can take include providing emotional support to the person struggling with self-harm and helping them take the first steps to receive therapy for self-harm.
The first step a loved one should do is to learn more about self-harm. The idea might feel foreign for a loved one, and they might have a hard time processing the fact that their loved one self-harms. It can help them to learn more about why the person self-harms and that they aren’t the only one.
It is essential to educate oneself about mental health conditions. A Mental health professional can help loved ones understand self-injury. Understanding the basics of self harm and mental health can help a person determine if treatment is necessary.
Once the loved one understands the basics of self-harm, they must broach the subject with the person struggling with self-harm to help them get the treatment they need to recover. This requires care and compassion because the person might not want to admit that they have a problem.
Many people who self-harm also struggle with self-esteem issues and might believe they aren’t worthy of love. A family member or loved one needs to provide this person with unconditional love. This means telling the person they’re loved and showing it as well.
When someone is struggling with self-harm issues, it’s essential that they seek therapy. A Self harm treatment center is the best way for the person to learn new coping skills and stop hurting themselves. However, it’s essential that the person find therapy for self-harm through the right program.
At First Light Recovery, we have self-harm treatment programs that can help a person recover and build the coping tools they need. Each team member offers compassion and understanding to our patients and invests in their recovery. Contact us today to learn more!
*The information provided on this website is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical, psychiatric, or behavioral health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical, psychiatric, or behavioral health condition.
*Never disregard professional medical or psychiatric advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. Reliance on any information provided on this website is solely at your own risk. This website does not recommend or endorse any specific treatment, medication, insurance, modality, test, physician, laboratory, product, procedure, opinion, or other information that may be mentioned on this website. The content of this website is subject to change without notice.
Copyright 2022 | First Light Recovery | All Rights Reserved
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to