Bleeding to Ease the Pain - (Abnormal Psychology) by Lori Plante (Hardcover)

About the Book

Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain upon themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youths, as we see in this revealing work. As author 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 growing teenage method for easing emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb and vent the despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others.

Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain on themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youth, as we see in this revealing work. Author Plante explains the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the vast majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a growing teenage method for easing emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb and vent despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others.

In this book, Plante features the stories of self-injurers and helps the reader understand the meaning of the injuries, and how to help teens stop. This author, who is a psychologist, a parent, and a Stanford University Medical School faculty member, explains in clear detail how cutters and the adults who love them can heal the pain and stop self-injury. Plante describes the frightening developmental tasks teenagers and young adults face, and how the central challenges of the three I's (Independence, Intimacy, and Identity) compel them to cope through self-destructive acts. Readers will feel as if they are in the therapy room with Plante and these struggling teenagers as they seek to overcome their internal pain and that desperate need to cut and self-injure.

Book Synopsis

Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain upon themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youths, as we see in this revealing work. As author 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 growing teenage method for easing emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb and vent the despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others.

Parents, teachers, friends, and even many clinicians are both horrified and mystified upon discovering teenagers who intentionally cut, burn, and otherwise inflict pain on themselves. Often causing permanent and extensive scarring, as well as infections, cutting is increasingly prevalent among today's youth. As many as 1 in 100 adolescents report cutting themselves, representing a growing epidemic of scarred and tormented youth, as we see in this revealing work. Author Plante explains the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the vast majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a growing teenage method for easing emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb and vent despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others.

In this book, Plante features the stories of self-injurers and helps the reader understand the meaning of the injuries, and how to help teens stop. This author, who is a psychologist, a parent, and a Stanford University Medical School faculty member, explains in clear detail how cutters and the adults who love them can heal the pain and stop self-injury. Plante describes the frightening developmental tasks teenagers and young adults face, and how the central challenges of the three I's (Independence, Intimacy, and Identity) compel them to cope through self-destructive acts. Readers will feel as if they are in the therapy room with Plante and these struggling teenagers as they seek to overcome their internal pain and that desperate need to cut and self-injure.

Review Quotes

"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

"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 later 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 ^IBleeding to Ease the Pain^R 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.mentalhelp.net

"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 sccinct quotations from both teenages 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

About the Author

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 practicein 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.