Self-Injury Fact Sheet The Youth Development framework focuses
primarily on understanding how to help young people thrive. To
do this, however, it is important to also understand young
people’s expressions of discomfort and malady. Although not a
new phenomenon, “self-injury” is a practice that hampers efforts
to promote thriving and which may reflect toxic conditions in
the social environments youth inhabit. Self-injury is the most
common label for behaviors in which a person deliberately harms
him or her body. Precisely what constitutes self-injury is a
matter of some debate, but it is most commonly associated with
intentional carving or cutting of the skin and subdermal tissue,
scratching, burning, ripping or pulling skin or hair, bruising,
or breaking bones. Some researchers include excessive piercing
and tattooing. Recent films such as Thirteen and Girl,
Interrupted along with disclosures of self-injurious behavior by
well known people such as Johnny Depp and Princess Diana have
begun to draw attention t