Insight: Nov 26

This week on Insight host Jenny Brockie meets the people who you would never guess would self-harm.

Why do people do it and how do you break the cycle?

One is a man in his 60s. He doesn’t self-harm anymore but still occasionally feels the urge. One is a practicing mental health worker who works with young people and trains mental health workers, but has her own private struggles.

Some experts think there is a trend of people with no diagnosed psychological or mental health issues resorting to self-harming.

Guests include:

Lindsay
Lindsay, 64, used to hurt himself to cope with feelings of worthlessness. He was a young married man and was feeling pressured and overwhelmed at work. Eventually he managed to stop self-harming: he stopped drinking alcohol and started mindfulness.

Issie
Issie began self-harming a year ago at the age of 14. Although she says she has stopped, she sometimes ‘relapses’. She began cutting after she saw it in a movie and then Googled it to find out more. She says most of her friends are doing it or have tried it before.

Luke
For Luke, self-harm almost felt like a guilty pleasure. He started when he was 14 years old as a way of dealing with a traumatic event from his childhood. Over the next ten years, Luke came to rely on it more and more as a stress release. But he stopped when he realised how much he was also hurting his family.

Regan
Regan is a mental health worker who knows more than most about the phenomenon of self-harm: she does it herself. Regan says her own experiences mean that she doesn’t judge or preconceive the people who seek her help.

Alex
Alex started self-harming at the age of 10 – she can’t remember what prompted that first instance. She then continued self-harming for five years. There wasn’t a traumatic event that triggered it: she had a good life with money, nice clothes and a good school. She said it took away her feelings of anger and gave her a sense of control

Philip Hazell
Professor Philip Hazell is Head of Psychiatry at Sydney Medical School and specialises in adolescent mental health. He says most self-harm is not about suicide. It’s mostly about managing emotions.

Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS ONE.