Good afternoon, everyone. It's Dr. Niagara again with our next episode of Psychology Unplugged.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. And last week has really been a pleasure because I've had an opportunity to connect with a lot of people who've reached out through psychology today.

I'm looking forward to further conversations and actually meeting some of you guys. So

today's topic is something that is a really crucial part of dealing with mental health and psychiatric conditions and going to focus on self-injurious

behaviors and suicidality. Now, if you just step back from a non-psychiatric perspective and ask why would somebody want to cause physical pain to

themselves? It seems almost irrational. But in working with individuals who have a history or currently engaging in self-injurious behaviors,

it makes perfect sense to them. Now, when I'm doing my structured diagnostic clinical interview,

obviously one of the questions I asked for is any history of self-injurious behaviors,

giving examples of cutting, of burning, scratching. And it's really important to understand,

one, what is the methodology and what is the possible lethality?

And three, what is the reason for someone to engage in self-injurious behaviors?

And there's generally three reasons why people will engage in self-endurious behaviors.

So if you think of it this way, how do you get rid of a headache?

You drop a hammer on your foot.

You temporarily forget about the pain in your head and you focus on the pain in your foot.

So one possible reason for engaging in

self-injurious behaviors is a transference of emotional pain that I perceive that I cannot

control to a physical pain that I can control. A second reason is it's a form of self-punishment. I deserve to feel hurt.

I deserve to feel pain. And third is a form of, I feel so numb or self-loathing.

And understanding the reasons for engaging the behavior is incredibly important from a therapeutic perspective.

So on the episode of borderline personality, there's a common misconception that people, if you cut, you have borderline personality.

Not true at all.

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