If someone feels the need to cut themselves with scissors, not even to bleed, but to leave marks, is that bad?
1 Answers
Last Updated: 11/10/2020 at 7:35pm
Moderated by
Polly Letsch, LCSW
Clinical Social Work/Therapist
I provide non-judgmental, person-centered, objective therapeutic treatment for individuals of all ages to improve social, emotional, mental and other areas of functioning.
Top Rated Answers
Self-harm is self-harm, period. If someone is self-harming, timely support may be beneficial and, frankly, necessary. There are degrees of self-harm to be sure, but there's no minimum requirement you have to want for to demonstrate empathy and concern.
Maybe I'm getting caught up in semantics, but 'bad' isn't a word I'd use to describe any behaviour. Harmful, counter-productive, regressive, hostile, self-hating, destructive are better terms. Bad is vague, can invoke shades of unintended meaning, and comes with the risk of it being mis-applied to the person not the behaviour. That would be 'bad' indeed. I'm curious about others' takes on this topic too so I hope a lot of people respond to this question!
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