BACKGROUND Patients with borderline personality disorder often are found and treated in psychiatric settings following episodes of self-mutilation, such as wrist-slashing. Family physicians care for many patients with borderline personality disorder, but in primary care settings wrist-slashing or other physical mutilation is a less common presenting problem. Frequently these patients complain o...

This study was made by a qualitative approach based on symbolic interactionism and grounded theory. The subject was defined as what mutilation means for nurses who take care of women submitted to gynaecological surgery. The aim was to identify the interaction relationship of nurses as female with the phenomenon of mutilation in gynaecological surgeries and how it affects their relationship with...

issue in an informed way, there should be greater research into whether affected women view themselves as victims of assault or as active and willing participants in a necessary social act. As J Tim Scott reasoned in a letter to the British Medical Journal (www.bmj.com/cgi/eleters/321/7256/ 262#EL3 [accessed Sept 25, 2001]), some supporters of the educative approach rather than a total ban may ...

A case of genital self mutilation in schizophrenia is described and its psychopathology discussed.