<font color="blue">I found some "old" former graduate work notes and stuff about self injury... and hope they can help someone here. I'll add a little as I go, unless y'all tell me to stop, ok?

Self injury is the deliberate damaging of body tissue without conscious intent to commit suicide. It has been described as "self-mutilation", "self-harm," "auto aggression," "deliberate self-harm," "delicate self-cutting," and a number of other terms.

A wide variety of people self-injure. The "typical" repetitive self-injurer begins this behavior during late childhood and early adolescence. For some it becomes chronic, for many, the disorder ends within 10-15 years. Those who engage in this behavior often have, or may develop, eating disorders. (A smaller group may suffer from substance abuse, and/or kleptomania.) Female self-injurers more often enter treatment, but the syndrome appears to be equally experienced by both sexes.

Common items in backgrounds of those who self-injure repetitively include childhood physical or sexual abuse, violence at home, inhibition of verbal expression of anger, broken homes, hypercritical fathers, history of hospitalization during early childhood (procedures or illness), parental alcoholism and/or depression, residential institution confinement.