Responses to Self Harm: An Historical Analysis of Medical, Religious, Military and Psychological Perspectives

Self harm is generally regarded as a modern epidemic, associated especially with young women. But references to self harm are found in the poetry of ancient Rome, the drama of ancient Greece and early Christian texts, including the Bible. Studied by criminologists, doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists and sociologists, the actions of those who harm themselves are often alienating and bewildering. This book provides a historical and conceptual roadmap for understanding self harm across a range of times and places: in modern high schools and in modern warfare; in traditional religious practices and in avant-garde performance art. Describing the diversity of self harm as well as responses to it, this book challenges the understanding of it as a single behavior associated with a specific age group, gender or cultural identity.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Sources Introduction Chapter 1. Classical and Christian Stories of Self Harm Ethnographies of the Galli Mythographies of Attis Psychoanalysis and the Uses of Attis Self Harm and Religious Expression Modern Medicine and the Uses of Myth Spectre and Spectacle: Self Harm as Performance Chapter 2. Delicate Structures? Case Studies of Self Harm Self Enucleation and Ingestion of Needles Malingering Versus Mental Illness: Respecting Patients? The Deserving Patient The Undeserving Patient Diagnosing and Disclosing Self Harm: Dermatology Dermatology and the “mysterious mental element” Responding to Self Harm Demonizing Self Harm: Beverley Allitt and After Chapter 3. Self Harm as Malingering: Criminology and Military Medicine Militant Medicine: Self Harm as Crime Self Harm in Prison Doctors Resisting? The First World War The Secret Battle Conclusions Chapter 4. The Alien Self: Psychiatry and Psychology Criminology Finds the Psyche Pierre Janet The Unknown Ancestor: Dabrowski Freud and His Followers: Brunswick, Lewis and Greenacre Karl Menninger and Man Against Himself Freud in Practice: Case Reports Theorizing Self Harm: Otto Fenichel Challenging Freud: Horney on Feminine Masochism Reviving Feminine Masochism Ferenczi and His Followers Reflections: Reading Self Harm The Impact of Self Harm Behaviorism Speculations on Siblings, Speech and Controlled ­Re-Enactment The Language of Self Harm: Speech and Controlled ­Re-Enactment Researching Self Harm Chapter Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Leigh Dale is professor of English at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and editor of the journal Australian Literary Studies and has published on Australian and postcolonial literatures.