Hey YoBeth, I posted this in another thread yesterday. I don't know how other people managed to stop self-harming but for me it was gradual. I think I'd have bolted if someone said I wasn't allowed to do it again. Because as f*cked up as it was, it was still a coping method and I was kind of attached to it. Here's what I wrote:

In my experience focusing too much on SH itself just made me want to do it more. Talking or thinking about it made it almost irresistible. What was helpful was talking about coping strategies which was boring, so boring! But for me SH was very exciting, gave me a rush and made me feel alive (but paradoxically was also sometimes calming) so it was helpful to find other ways to feel alive or calm down or cope with an unbearable feeling. Also helpful was picturing who I wanted to be. I got to a point where I really, really didn't want to be someone who SH'd and had scars everywhere and had to feel embarrassed every time it was hot out or I went swimming or wanted to have sex etc.

So I don't think it's necessarily helpful to talk about SH all the time, every time you do it etc. Talk about the times you wanted to but didn't. Talk about a feeling that triggers your desire to SH and have your T help you defuse it right there in session. Have her breathe with you or go for a walk together or just talk about how you are not the feeling. Pretend your brain is a big screen in a movie theatre. The images are vivid but fleeting. The images are on the screen but they are not the screen. Your feelings aren't forever.

As an addendum: the sex part was really important... I didn't want to be sleeping with someone who didn't notice or care that I self-injured. BUT the kind of quality person I wanted to be with wouldn't have wanted to play the crazy mind games that sleeping with someone who regularly self-injures entails. You see the conundrum... I wasn't willing to give up sex/romance/intimacy and I wanted someone better than the kind of person who would allow the dynamic of me working out all my difficult feelings on my wrists instead of communicating honestly and respectfully with them. So that was my main motivation.