Self-injury is much deeper than the physical wounds on your body.
The act of harming yourself is usually a result of severe trauma, deep inner conflicts, and unresolved anger, turned inward.
It can be confusing, heartbreaking, and scary for you and everyone in your life.
Your marks and wounds tell a story.
It’s usually a story about not getting your needs met, or being violated, abused, or neglected by the people who were supposed to care and protect you.
It’s a story of pain and confusion that sometimes feels endless.
We are here to hear your story and help you heal.
The reason you may resort to self-harm is clear: it can be grounding, and it can feel like a release or escape from your unbearable pain.
Our therapists will help you learn other ways to cope by providing you with emotional regulation techniques and practical skills to ground yourself in your body that keep you safe.
While there are various ways to self-harm, the most common form of self-harm is cutting.
Cutting can occur due to feelings of frustration and anger, emotional dysregulation, undiagnosed mental illness, or any type of trauma.
People who cut use tools or sharp objects to create scars on their body.
Signs of self-harming behavior can include physical wounds/scars, keeping potentially harmful objects near you, being distant in your relationships, wearing long sleeves and full clothing in all types of weather, experiencing unstable emotions and behavior, or feeling overwhelming hopelessness and lack of self-worth.
Other types of self-injury include burning yourself, scratching, hitting or punching yourself, piercing your skin with any type of object, or any other method that can potentially cause your body harm.
Usually, the self-harm occurs on the arms or legs, but it can be done anywhere on the body.
Regardless, it is vital to get help in order to learn a safer way to cope with your feelings, heal, and become more empowered in the way you related to your pain.
Contrary to popular belief, harming oneself is not always a suicide attempt and is not always intended to be life-threatening.
But unfortunately, that’s not always where the story ends.
With non-suicidal self-injury comes the possibility of serious complications and even accidental fatalities.
While self-harm may bring a momentary sense of calm and release, it is usually followed by guilt, shame, and the return of painful emotions.
So, self-harm just kicks the pain down the road.
And what’s worse is that the issues can compound and accumulate due to avoiding them, and over time can create a vicious, self-reinforcing feedback loop.
Non-suicidal self-injury is usually the result of not knowing how to cope with psychological pain.
That’s where we come in.
We will work with you to develop actionable, practical coping skills and cognitive behavioral techniques to change your thinking, and we will help you heal the deeper issues that are causing your self-harming behaviors.
We attack the issue from both sides, inner and outer, rather than focusing solely on the behavior.
That’s because we find that integrating a practical behavioral approach with inner healing work is the most effective.
Some of the therapies and techniques we use for self-injury include:
Therapy can successfully improve your life by helping you minimize the anxiety in your life, identify and change underlying thought and behavioral patterns that contribute to your struggles, and provide you with strategies to decrease discomfort while restoring an overall sense of peace.
To experience true and lasting joy in our life, we must face and conquer our pain by healing our underlying trauma and confronting our fears.
Our evidence-based, scientifically proven interventions are demonstrated by research to be effective in overcoming trauma, low self-esteem, and anxiety that may contribute to self-harm.
We find you the perfect therapist – or your money back.
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127 Broadway Suite 205
Santa Monica, CA 90401
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130 Ocean Park Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
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16055 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, CA 91436.
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12100 Wilshire Blvd. 8th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90025
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10801 National Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
