Introduction -- Literature and population -- Studying self-injury -- Becoming a self-injurer -- The phenomenology of the cut -- Loners in the social world -- Colleagues in the cyber world -- Self-injury communities -- Self-injury relationships -- The social transformation of self-injury -- Careers in self-injury -- Understanding self-injury
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SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
"Cutting, burning, branding, and bone-breaking are all types of self-injury, of the deliberate, non-suicidal destruction of one's own body tissue, a practice that emerged from obscurity in the 1990s and spread dramatically as a typical behavior among adolescents. Long considered a suicidal gesture, The Tender Cut argues instead that self-injury is often a coping mechanism, a form of teenage angst, and expression of group membership, and a type of rebellion, converting unbearable emotional pain into manageable physical pain. An important portrait of a troubling behavior, The Tender Cut illuminates the meaning of self-injury in the 21st century, its effects on current and former users, and its future as a practice for self-discovery or a cry for help."--P. [4] of cover