As increasing numbers of youth turn to self-injury, counselors can offer empathy while guiding young clients to better tolerate their emotions and find healthier ways to cope.
Tag: self-harm
A youth mental health crisis is rising to a crescendo in American schools, so now more than ever, school-based counselors need support and buy-in from school staff, parents and outside mental health professionals.
By building an understanding of the motivations for nonsuicidal self-injury, counselors can develop detailed plans that address clients’ underlying issues.
For much of human history, the idea of adolescence being a distinct life stage was nonexistent. True, in the Middle Ages, children were recognized not merely as “mini” adults but as distinct beings with different needs. However, the years from ages 13 to 19 were not considered part of childhood
Although 13 Reasons Why gives us pause for its poor portrayal of effective suicide intervention, we feel that the series raises awareness and, at its core, advocates a community-level response to suicide prevention. This message to “look out for each other” is aligned with more intervention-oriented gatekeeping.
As professional counselors, we enter this field with a desire to understand and help others. There comes a time in every counselor’s career, however, when intellectual understanding is overpowered by the need for empathic understanding. This is particularly true when counselors work with clients who intentionally cut, burn, scratch, hit or otherwise
The prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents and young adults has rapidly and significantly increased in recent years, leading mental health professionals and researchers to describe its pervasiveness as epidemic. By definition, a person does not engage in NSSI with intent to die. Rather, NSSI is a means of
Cutting. Burning. Headbanging. Embedding. Self-hitting. Pinpricking. Thinking about people intentionally hurting themselves in these ways can be difficult but, sometimes, counselors don’t have a choice. When a client struggling with nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) appears in a counselor’s office, the counselor’s task is to help — and the perhaps natural reaction