Publisher Description

Cutting and other forms of self-injury are often cries for help, pleas for someone to notice that the pain is too much to bear. As Plante discusses here, the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a rapidly spreading method for teens hoping to ease emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb the cutter and vent despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others. Plante describes the frightening developmental tasks teenagers and young adults face, and how the central challenges of the three Is (Independence, Intimacy, and Identity) compel them to cope through self-destructive acts. Readers will come to a better understanding of these struggling teenagers and the dramatic methods they employ to ease and overcome their internal pain through a desperate need to cut and self-injure.

Author Biography

Lori G. Plante is Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University Medical School. She is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Menlo Park, California, specializing in the assessment and treatment of adolescents and young adults. She is the author of numerous articles on eating disorders, sexuality, and sexual abuse in adolescents and young adults.

Table of Contents

1 Foreword 2 1 Self-Injury on the Rampage 3 2 Special Populations, Special Concerns: Teenagers Most at Risk 4 3 Developmental Challenges in Adolescence: The Agony, the Ecstasy, the Cell Phone, and the Internet 5 4 Why Teens Self-Injure: Doing All the Wrong Things for the Right Reasons 6 5 Laying the Foundation for Intervention: Composure, Compassion, and Comprehension 7 6 Professional Treatment of Self-Injury: Understanding the Therapeutic Process 8 7 Specialized Approaches and Adjuncts in Treating Self-Injury 9 8 The Brain as an Attitude Pharmacy: Neurochemical Roles and Remedies in Self-Injury 10 9 Intervention in Action: How It Works 11 10 Stepping Up to the Plate: How Parents Can Help 12 11 Health and Happiness Are Verbs: The Responsibilities of the Adolescent in Treatment 13 12 Depathologizing Adolescent Self-Injury: Cutting on a Continuum 14 Conclusions: Reconceptualizing Cutting

Review

The book contains information that may be extremely valuable to parents. The author addresses directly the issue that parents may feel responsibility or guilt for their child's DSH. This is accomplished through the provision of succinct quotations from both teenagers and parents. This helps parents realize they are not alone in these circumstances, normalizes their reactions, and provides hope for the future .... Plante's Bleeding to Ease the Pain provides clinicians and nonclinicians important information to begin advancement in this area....[a] novel approach to understanding and treating adolescents by adopting a developmental approach that emphasizes their relationship with their parents. * PsycCRITIQUES *
There is a growing epidemic of young people resorting to cutting themselves in order to cope with the pain and turmoil of life changes, says Plante. She explores the reasons behind such painful and damaging acts in adolescents, and offers both a philosophy and a methodology for effective intervention. Her topics include teenagers most at risk, developmental challenges, professional treatment, neurochemistry, how parents can help, responsibilities of the adolescent in treatment, and de-pathologizing the problem. * Scitech Book News *
Plante does a comprehensive job of explaining the many variables and factors to consider when assessing and intervening with adolescents who self-injure. She frames self-injurious behavior within the complex developmental conflict of adolescence, a time when the need for independence and connection are most salient. Plante provides case studies and practical suggestions that are useful for parents and mental health providers on how to intervene and provide support.... Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates, first-year graduate students, practitioners, and parents of adolescents. * CHOICE *
Adolescents and their families are traumatized by a teen's bleeding to relieve emotional pain. Bleeding to Ease the Pain offers a thoughtful, compassionate, and developmentally and socio-culturally-informed approach to understanding adolescents who engage in cutting and self injury. Invaluable advice and guidance is offered to these adolescents and their families so that they can receive the best care possible. Through compelling and poignant case vignettes, Plante provides hope and a sense of empowerment to those whose lives are impacted by adolescent self-injury. She presents an impressive roadmap for mental health professionals to guide them in effectively helping these teens and their families develop adaptive ways to cope with stress and distress. -- Nadine J. Kaslow, PhD, Emory University
It is rare to encounter a work on an important topic that would be of interest to clinicians, patients and their families, and to the general public. Books aimed at the latter often tend to sensationalize their subject matter, and books aimed at patients and their families tend to be dumbed down to an almost embarrassing extent, rendering them useless to the clinician. But Plante achieves this seemingly impossible balance in Bleeding to Ease the Pain and has produced a work that I would recommend strongly to colleagues, patients, and anyone concerned about the lives of today's adolescents ....A concise, excellent introduction to adolescent cutting from a clinician's perspective. Valuable for clinicians, patients, parents, and the interested general reader. * Metapsychology Online *

Long Description

Cutting and other forms of self-injury are often cries for help, pleas for someone to notice that the pain is too much to bear. As Plante discusses here, the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a rapidly spreading method for teens hoping to ease emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb the cutter and vent despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others. Plante describes the frightening developmental tasks teenagers and young adults face, and how the central challenges of the three Is (Independence, Intimacy, and Identity) compel them to cope through self-destructive acts. Readers will come to a better understanding of these struggling teenagers and the dramatic methods they employ to ease and overcome their internal pain through a desperate need to cut and self-injure.

Review Quote

There is a growing epidemic of young people resorting to cutting themselves in order to cope with the pain and turmoil of life changes, says Plante. She explores the reasons behind such painful and damaging acts in adolescents, and offers both a philosophy and a methodology for effective intervention. Her topics include teenagers most at risk, developmental challenges, professional treatment, neurochemistry, how parents can help, responsibilities of the adolescent in treatment, and de-pathologizing the problem.

Details