A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
A new social media website is turning into a haven for vicious cyber-bullies taunting their victims about suicide, self-harm and weight issues. Ask.fm is the latest hit website among teenagers, with more than 40 million users worldwide, but parents and schools are shocked by the content. On the website, members create a profile and are [...]
In a paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the researchers found children who are both victims and bullies ('bully-victims'), are at highly increased risk of considering suicide, or have planned and engaged in suicidal or self-harming behaviour by 11-12 years of age. These [...]
Excellent advice on helping a friend with an eating disorder and dealing with stalking When I speak in schools, I’m often asked for advice on how to help a friend with an eating disorder (and not just girls - a male student ask me in a school in regional NSW recently). So I was really [...]
As one of Britain's foremost child psychotherapists, Julie Lynn Evans thought she had long since heard every parental nightmare. But last week, after reading the tragic story of 15-year-old Tallulah Wilson, who killed herself after visiting websites about self-harm and anorexia, she found herself in tears. Her clients include three young people who have attempted [...]
When a person performs an act of self harm, the medical professional's first priority is to get him or her safely past that immediate event. But research published Monday evening in the British medical journal 'The Lancet' finds that people who harm themselves — by intentionally injuring or poisoning themselves, with or without suicidal intent, [...]
There now exists a mountain of empirical research, not only from feminist social scientists, but also from psychologists, clinicians, nurses, anthropologists and economists, of the harms of prostitution for women. These harms include post-traumatic stress disorder, genital and other physical injuries, pregnancy, depression and anxiety, and social isolation. It has been known since the late [...]
Self-harm can spread like a virus through friendship networks. And now, new research shows it seems to be spreading throughout NSW. As I reveal in the Herald today, figures released on the Health Statistics NSW website* show the rate of people being hospitalised for self-harm has more than doubled in NSW over the past 10 [...]
Cutting — using a sharp object like a razorblade, knife, or scissors to make marks, cuts, or scratches on one's own body — is a form of self-injury. For most, cutting is an attempt to interrupt strong emotions and pressures that seem impossible to tolerate. It can be related to broader emotional issues that need [...]
10% of girls self harm* Image Source: Youthbeyondblue A recent study published in The Lancet, The natural history of self-harm from adolescence to young adulthood: a population-based cohort study, took a group of 1,943 young people from 44 schools in Victoria and documented their lives from the age of 14 to 29 years old. During [...]
