Non-suicidal self-injury and eating disorders represent significant problems among today’s youth and pose unique challenges for clinicians, particularly when they co-occur. This book is a rare resource in that it provides cutting-edge information on the interactions between self-injury and disordered eating, empirically informed treatments for the co-occurrence of these behaviors, and specific topics relevant to understanding nuances in the risk factors, treatment, and prevention of both self-injury and eating disorders. Practitioners, graduate students, and researchers working within this specialized area will find this text to be instrumental in advancing their knowledge and improving the treatment of self-injury in those with eating disorders.

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a baffling, troubling, and hard to treat phenomenon that has increased markedly in recent years. Key issues in diagnosing and treating NSSI adequately include differentiating it from attempted suicide and other mental disorders, as well as understanding the motivations for self-injury and the context in which it occurs. This accessible and practical book provides therapists and students with a clear understanding of these key issues, as well as of suitable assessment techniques. It then goes on to delineate research-informed treatment approaches for NSSI, with an emphasis on functional assessment, emotion regulation, and problem solving, including motivational interviewing, interpersonal skills, CBT, DBT, behavioral management strategies, delay behaviors, exercise, family therapy, risk management, and medication, as well as how to successfully combine methods.

Over the past fifteen years, there has been a great increase in the knowledge of eating disorders in sport and effective means of treatment. In this book, the authors draw on their extensive clinical experience to discuss how to identify, manage, treat, and prevent eating disorders in sport participants. They begin by examining the clinical conditions related to eating problems, including descriptions of specific disorders and a review of the relevant literature. Special attention is given to the specific gender and sport-related factors that can negatively influence the eating habits of athletes. The second half of the book discusses identification of participants with disordered eating by reviewing symptoms and how they manifest in sport; management issues for sport personnel, coaches, athletic trainers, and healthcare professionals; treatment; and medical considerations, such as the use of psychotropic medications. A list of useful resources is included in an appendix, as well as a glossary of important terms.

Suicide is a perplexing human behavior that remains among the leading causes of death worldwide, responsible for more deaths each year than all wars, genocide, and homicide combined. Although suicide and other forms of self-injury have baffled scholars and clinicians for thousands of years, the past few decades have brought significant leaps in our understanding of these behaviors. This volume provides a comprehensive summary of the most important and exciting advances in our understanding of suicide and self-injury and our ability to predict and prevent it. Comprised of a formidable who's who in the field, the handbook covers the full spectrum of topics in suicide and self-injury across the lifespan, including the classification of different self-injurious behaviors, epidemiology, assessment techniques, and intervention. Chapters probe relevant issues in our society surrounding suicide, including assisted suicide and euthanasia, suicide terrorism, overlap between suicidal behavior and interpersonal violence, ethical considerations for suicide researchers, and current knowledge on survivors of suicide. The most comprehensive handbook on suicide and self-injury to date, this volume is a must-read text for graduate students, fellows, academic and research psychologists, and other researchers working in the brain and behavioral sciences.

Until recently, borderline personality disorder has been the step-child of psychiatric disorders. Many researchers even questioned its existence. Clinicians have been reluctant to reveal the diagnosis to patients because of the stigma attached to it. But individuals with BPD suffer terribly and a significant proportion die by suicide and engage in non-suicidal self injury. This volume provides state of the art information on clinical course, epidemiology, comorbidities and specialized treatments

Throughout history, people have invented many different ways to inflict direct and deliberate physical injury on themselves -- without an intent to die. Even today, the concept and practice of self-injury is sanctioned by some cultures, although condemned by most. This insightful work fills a gap in the literature on pathologic self-injury. The phenomenon of people physically hurting themselves is heterogeneous in nature, disturbing in its impact on the self and others, frightening in its blatant maladaptiveness, and often indicative of serious developmental disturbances, breaks with reality, or deficits in the regulation of affects, aggressive impulses, or self states. Further complicating our understanding is the large and diverse scope of psychiatric conditions, such as pervasive developmental disorders, Tourette's syndrome, and psychosis, in which these behaviors occur. This volume presents a comprehensive nosology of self-injurious behaviors, classifying them as stereotypic, major, compulsive, and impulsive (with greater emphasis on the last two categories because they are the most commonly seen). The chapter on stereotypic self-injurious behaviors (highly repetitive, monotonous behaviors usually devoid of meaning, such as head-banging) focuses on the neurochemical systems underlying the various forms of stereotypic movement disorders with self-injurious behaviors, typically seen in patients with mental retardation and autism, and discusses their psychopharmacological management. The chapter on psychotic, or major, self-injurious behaviors (severe, life-threatening behaviors, such as castration) presents a multidimensional approach to evaluating and treating patients with psychosis and self-injurious behaviors, including the neuroanatomy and neurobiology of sensory information processing as background for its discussion of neurobiological studies and psychopharmacological treatments. Chapters on the neurobiology of and psychopharmacology and psychotherapies for compulsive self-injurious behaviors (repetitive, ritualistic behaviors, such as trichotillomania [hair-pulling]) offer much-needed biological research and the first empirical treatment studies on compulsive self-injurious behaviors, and argue that a distinction can indeed be made between compulsive and impulsive self-injurious behaviors. Chapters on the neurobiology, psychopharmacology, and dialectic behavior and psychodynamic theory and treatment of impulsive self-injurious behaviors (habitual, chronic behaviors, such as skin picking) supplement the few neurobiological studies measuring impulsivity, aggression, dissociation, and suicide and detail the efficacy of various medications and psychotherapies. An eminently practical guide with exhaustive references to the latest data and research findings, this concise volume contains clinical material and therapeutic interventions that can be used right away by clinicians to better understand and treat patients with these complex and disturbing behaviors.

An important new guide to flexible empirically supported practice in CBT. There is a growing movement across health care to adopt empirically supported practice. Treatments for Psychological Problems and Syndromes makes an important contribution by offering a comprehensive guide for adopting a more flexible approach to cognitive behavioural therapy. Edited by three recognized experts in the field of CBT, the text has three key aims: firstly to identify components of models describing specific psychological conditions that are empirically supported, poorly supported or unsupported; secondly to propose theoretical rationales for sequencing of interventions, and criteria for moving from one treatment procedure to the next; and thirdly to identify mechanisms of psychological syndromes that may interfere with established protocols in order to promote more informed treatment and improve outcomes. Written in clear and concise terms, this is an authoritative guide that will be relevant and useful to a wide range of readers from beginning clinicians to experienced practitioners.

Traumatic Dissociation: Neurobiology and Treatment offers an advanced introduction to this symptom, process, and pattern of personality organization seen in several trauma-related disorders, including acute stress disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the dissociative disorders. Our understanding of traumatic dissociation has recently been advanced by neuroimaging technology, empirically-based investigation, and an acknowledgment of its importance in psychopathology. The authors of this volume tie these findings together, tracking the condition from its earliest historical conceptualization to its most recent neurobiological understanding to provide even greater insight into traumatic dissociation and its treatment. Bringing together for the first time theoretical, cognitive, and neurobiological perspectives on traumatic dissociation, this volume is designed to provide both empirical and therapeutic insights by drawing on the work of many of the main contributors to the field. Opening chapters examine historical, conceptual, and theoretical issues and how other fields, such as cognitive psychology, have been applied to the study of traumatic dissociation. The following section focuses specifically on how neurobiological investigations have deepened our understanding of dissociation and concluding chapters explore issues pertinent to the assessment and treatment of traumatic dissociation. The interacting effects of traumatic experience, developmental history, neurobiological function, and specific vulnerabilities to dissociative processes that underlie the occurrence of traumatic dissociation are among some of the key issues covered. The book's significant contributions include A review of cognitive experimental findings on attention and memory functioning in dissociative identity disorder An appreciation of how the literature on hypnosis provides a greater understanding of perceptual processing and traumatic stress Ascertaining symptoms of dissociation in a military setting and in other situations of extreme stress An outline of key issues for planning assessment of traumatic dissociation, including a critique of its primary empirically supported standardized measures An examination of the association between child abuse or neglect and the development of eating disorders, suggesting ways to therapeutically deal with negative body experience to reduce events that trigger dissociation A description of neuroendocrine alterations associated with stress, pointing toward a better understanding of the developmental effects of deprivation and trauma on PTSD and dissociation A review of the relation of attachment and dissociation A discussion of new research findings in the neuroimaging of dissociation and a link between cerebellar functioning and specific peritraumatic experiences Useful as a clinical reference or as ancillary textbook, Traumatic Dissociation reorganizes phenomenological observations that have been overlooked, misunderstood, or neglected in traditional training. The research and clinical experience described here will provide the basis for further clinical and theoretical formulations of traumatic dissociation and will advance empirical examination and treatment of the phenomenon.

This edited volume features evidence-based reviews and practical approaches for the professional in the hospital, clinic, community and school, with case examples throughout. Divided into five major sections, the book offers background historical and cultural information, discussion of self-injury etiology, assessment and intervention/prevention issues, and relevant resources for those working with youths who self-injure.

"Parents who discover a teen's self-injurious behavior are gripped by uncertainty and flooded with questions - Why is my child doing this? Is this a suicide attempt? What did I do wrong? What can I do to stop it? And yet basic educational resources for parents with self-injuring children are sorely lacking. Healing after Self-Injury provides desperately-needed guidance to parents and others who love a young person struggling with self-injury"--