There are few words in our language that adequately express pain. To express emotional or physical pain to another human being we often rely upon metaphor. Self-mutilation is generally an unspoken expression of an internal and intangible experience. This behavior makes the unseen experience concrete. In some cases the process and outcome of self-mutilation is an explicit metaphor for the mind o...

BACKGROUND To investigate the association of bullying behavior with suicide attempts and self-mutilation among adolescents. SAMPLING AND METHODS The study sample consisted of 508 Finnish adolescents (age 12-17 years) admitted to psychiatric inpatient care between April 2001 and March 2006. DSM-IV psychiatric diagnoses and variables measuring suicidal behavior (i.e. suicide attempts and self-m...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159854.].

We present a case report of a 22-year-old Nigerian student who presented to the accident and emergency unit of a Nigerian Teaching Hospital with a history of self-inflicted genital injury following a suicide attempt. He had background history of predisposition to depressive illness, a current diagnosis of a major depressive disorder, and had had two attempted suicidal episodes in the last 3 mon...

Self-mutilation occurs in 70-80% of patients who meet DSM-IV criteria for borderline personality disorder. Approximately 60% of these patients report that they do not feel pain during acts of self-mutilation such as cutting or burning. Findings of recent studies measuring pain perception in patients with BPD are difficult to interpret since variables such as distress, dissociation or relevant p...