Book Review: Bodily Harm by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader

I work for RAINN's (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network) online hotline for six months now. And while providing crisis intervention for sexual assault victims I realize that I have recommended Bodily Harm countless times. I have read many books about self-injury (SI), and while I do admit that this book has parts that make it seem like every other SI book, I truly believe Bodily Harm offers something for everyone. For the self-injurer, Bodily Harm offers an innovative approach to explaining the S.A.F.E. (Self Abuse Finally Ends) healing process. And for family, partners and friends, Bodily Harm offers a compassionate examination of the disorder.

When I read Bodily Harm for the first time I knew from reading the introduction that this book was going to be different. Part of the introduction is devoted to explaining the cultural forced that have fostered self-injury. I believe this intro analysis does an excellent job of explaining some of the cultural factors that might lead an individual to self-injure. Understanding the cultural forces that lead up to self-injury and understanding the act itself is incredibly important for anyone trying to heal. It lets the individual learn about the forces that lead them to engage in SI behavior. And at the same time it offers a lot of sympathetic information for the people around the individual. This knowledge that is briefly detailed in the introduction, and then expanded upon in later chapters is significant for the healing process because in order to defeat an addiction one must truly try to completely understand it.

The only gripe I have with this book is with the first chapter. And after the mesmerizing introduction, the first chapter sadly left me disapointed (but not disapointed enough to put down the book). If you have read SI books before then you probably already know what the first chapter is about. It stereotyptically details some case studies in a manner that I have seen in every other book. I personally find the details listed in these case studies to be ineffective in explaining self-injury, but to be objective that might be because I feel like I have read the same case studies before. But if this is your first time reading a book on self-injury, then maybe the case studies explained in Bodily Harm will be insightful. For those needing to heal this kind of approach could normalize some of their feelings and leave them with an overwhelming sense that they are not alone. And for others family, partners and friends, these case studies can offer hope, since by the end of the book readers will see the path each case study participant took to becoming healthy again.

So even though I have one minor gripe with this book, I am sure that not everyone will view it this way since it can be informative for those who have little or no exposure to the topic. Additionally there are so many great aspects of this book. For informative purposes, Bodily Harm offers a lot of insightful statistics and my favorite section is where it deals with self-injury within special populations.

Self-injury affects both genders, but there is a significant gender gap and women are the majority self-injury population. It was beneficial that Bodily Harm addressed SI in both gender populations, since societal definitions of masculinity and femininity often affect the methods of SI and the reasons for it. Additionally Bodily Harm addresses other special populations, like people with eating disorders, people with disociative identity disorder. The book also addresses self-injury in teens and prisoners. These perspectives on special populations are extremely insightful and necessary for understanding the identity of a self-mutilator and why he or she participates in the behavior. If an individual falls within one of the above special populations, then the extra information can only be more helpful in the individual's treatment.

After explaining SI, Bodily harm devotes a large section of the book to the getting S.A.F.E. Treatment. Treatment involves a contract, and lots of writing. Writing can be very theraputic in and of itself and the writing that the book requires for the treatment can be very helpful. The first writing assignment is writing an autobiography. I think that this writing assignment is a great start to the S.A.F.E. Treatment because it forces the individual to focus on themselves as being a whole person and not just one who participates in an unhealthy behavior. By getting the individual to focus on their whole life, he or she can reflect upon different aspects that make them who they are. Other books that have required writing assignments usually only focus on the behavior and ask questions that the individual might not fully know yet. Asking "why do you hurt yourself?" is not as helpful as asking a person to write about themselves and think of themselves as something more than cutters and bruisers etc.

Bodily Harm's S.A.F.E. Treatment approach is effective. I have seen friends relapse back to SI after trying other methods their therapists told them of, like snapping an elastic band on their wrist. And then when they took this book to their therapist and tried the S.A.F.E Approach they made a lot more progress. It can be inferred that the success of the case studies detailed in this book, and the many more that I am sure have occurred since the book's release is predominantly due to the fact that Bodily Harm is compassionate and informative while answering the what and why questions that surround self-injury. The book's additionally success lies within its unique treatment plan, which truly separates itself from every other book.