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Former good articleSelf-harm was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 13, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
June 3, 2006Good article nomineeListed
May 16, 2008Good article reassessmentKept
February 16, 2010Good article reassessmentKept
February 16, 2011Peer reviewReviewed
August 24, 2025Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Main picture is too "aestethic"

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Maybe I'm being paranoid but the picture of this article might look too "cute" for such a serious topic, the pinkish tone and harmless appearance might look appealing to some people thinking of self harming themselves. There's people who self harm that do it for the aesthethic after all.

I think a drawing would be the best way to illustrate this topic. Mirad1000 (talk) 13:34, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions about the image are relatively frequent. As yet, no one has provided a suitable public domain alternative. I favour a photograph over a drawing, but would be open to replacing the current photograph if a good quality alternative was identified. Polyamorph (talk) 14:51, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how a drawing would be better than an actual picture. Elli (talk | contribs) 15:05, 30 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Perhaps someone can find a good drawing? I probably wouldn't even support a picture with 'bad' aesthetic, as it can potentially make the action more 'real' and thereby accessible. JoeJShmo💌 01:54, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
These discussion are pointless when there is no alternative image provided. Polyamorph (talk) 06:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, added a self-harm video which hopefully attenuates your concerns. The Blue Rider 04:56, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Polyamroph feel free to take an image out of the video if you think it is appropriate. The Blue Rider 05:00, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have more pictures if needed as well. The Blue Rider 05:02, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is longstanding consensus to only have one photo/video, so I've removed your addition absent a new consensus. I'll also note that Mirad1000's concern here is the exact opposite of the concern that led this page to move away from a bloodier photo in the past. There will never be a photo that pleases anyone: Too bloody and it's too triggering, too anodyne and it understates the severity. But I think the current image is a pretty good compromise. It is possible that some person might find the scars in the image appealing, but I mean, those are all quite large scars; if they're appealing to someone, it's hard to think of what wouldn't be. (For what it's worth, my reaction to those scars, speaking as someone who has self-harm scars and isn't ashamed of it, is "Jesus I hope I never do anything like that".) Mind you, most dermis-level cutting heals to something only a few millimeters wide, so if anything the image overstates the scarring from the average case of self-harm. Not that I'm complaining. Courtesy ping Doc James as photographer. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe) 05:52, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a reduction in saturation (the pink tint) and white point ('harmless appearance') can give the image a somewhat more neutral tone? I'm uploading my humble attempt to the article. I acknowledge that editing other individual's photograph may be a very rude thing to do, so please just revert me if anyone sees inappropriateness. irisChronomia (talk) 17:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ping @Neo Purgatorio - Thanks for the feedback. I always find it hard to look at the image so that edit is just my attempt to make it look accpetable for myself. Got any ideas on this? irisChronomia (talk) 15:41, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I personally find no issue with the image, but I'm also very desensitised to the topic. As @Tamzin stated a bit above, there's not really a photo that won't be an issue to some group of people—I think the image being used is a good compromise since it isn't particularly gory in any way, but it still shows the topic at hand.
I reverted the image because it seems like a bad idea to me to modify images tied to medical articles; it makes the image inaccurate to what it would actually look like. It's a sensitive topic, but Wikipedia is not censored, and we can't have a solution that lasts forever for everything, but I think what is displayed in the article is a good solution, and I don't think there's anything that will please everyone—the current image is probably the best one we can use for now without displaying either nothing or full-on gore. Neo Purgatorio (pester!) 20:08, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I see. irisChronomia (talk) 22:03, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hey I have some pictures that arnt extremely gorry, but still look serious. I could add those if that would be helpful? Kidinthekorner (talk) 04:23, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, real scars from self-harm are more all over the place and the depth is more irregular. Although a drawing does make it seem a bit harmless. I think everyone who takes part on this conversation has experienced such things and thinks another picture would be more appropriate. To those here who are victims of themselves: We are not alone, stay strong. ~2025-33201-55 (talk) 22:11, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

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Self-harm

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delisted. Thanks, 1isall (talk/contribs) 02:07, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that this article needs a lot of medical citations, something that hasn't been addressed since August 2023. Thanks, 1isall (talk/contribs) 00:23, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also worth mentioning is that the History section has the original synthesis template. I've seen 6 instances of [medical citation needed] in the Pathophysiology section. But the more medical citations at the top seems to imply that more than 6 of those are needed, possibly throughout the entire article. Thanks, 1isall (talk/contribs) 00:30, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Self-poisoning as 'self-harm'?

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The article refers to self-poisoning as 'self-harm' in several places, but the article explicitly states that it does not count suicide attempts as self-harm. Isn't self-poisoning always a suicide attempt? Of course, it can be argued that some people are really doing it only to attract attention, as a form of protest and so on rather than with the serious intention of dying, but the same thing can be claimed about many, if not most, types of suicide attempts and it is difficult to make the distinction objectively and with certainty. Counting suicide attempts as self-harm just confuses the issue, IMO - there is a separate article about suicide and the point of having a separate term 'self-harm' is to be able to discuss non-suicidal self-harm. 62.73.72.101 (talk) 14:54, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To quote our article Poison a "Poison is one of the chemical substances that is harmful or lethal to a living organism." It is not, therefore, always lethal, but it can be harmful, which comes under the heading of self-harm. - Arjayay (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course poison can do harm without being lethal, but that doesn't change the fact that people who ingest poison generally do it in order to either kill themselves or pretend to be trying to kill themselves. They don't do it for the same reasons as the ones that reportedly cause people to habitually cut and burn themselves - to distract themselves from mental suffering via physical suffering, to punish themselves, etc.--62.73.72.101 (talk) 20:51, 14 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According to whom? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:47, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
see Health_effects_of_electronic_cigarettes#Self-harm AFeatherlessBipehead (talk) 14:41, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can I post my self harm on this article?

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Just like the image in the article, the self harm is mostly healed, so can I add it as one of the images? TyphoonHurricaneCyclone (talk) 03:42, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Beyond everything else, we hope you are fine and well, and thank you for improving Wikipedia.
The selection of lead image has received a lot of discussions before, without much consensus being made on how such an image should look like. We found it hard to find an image that satisfies everyone. For that reason, we simply left it be.
It’s likely that all images of self harm are equally descriptive of the subject than others, so there’s maybe not much need to change it.
Again, thank you for improving Wikipedia. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 04:05, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@TyphoonHurricaneCyclone in case you don't know you are always free to add your own image to Wikimedia Commons, which is our WP:SISTER project where images are often included from into Wikipedia articles. Note that when published under a Creative Commons license, your image becomes free to use for everyone forever. However, I guess that you think you would anyhow not earn money from it; hence, it might make sense to make an honorable contribution to free media that someone may one day find useful. BlockArranger (talk) 16:11, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Noting I've added an answer to this effect at Talk:Self-harm/FAQ. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 16:30, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreeing with the other user about the photo

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As someone who has struggled with sh in the past, personally for me photos trigger me a lot, especially that one, so i am suggesting/agreeing with the other user who originally suggested adding a drawing instead of a photo. Lmk if you have any updates or anything ~2025-35726-24 (talk) 09:04, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree even as someone with thankfully an experience not as scarring, surely something better like ice cubes (which may be a poor substitute in the moment) which is the main medical recommendation for a safe way to cause a painful sensation would be more appropriate as a lead image? Or else a grid image of various kind of SH to show images like a gambling machine, head pressed against wall, walking alone at night (just off the top of my head)?
The current image in my opinion is not a question of being 'honest' or avoiding 'censorship'-- it just seems to be ignorant and sensational rather than helpful even if the scars are healed (very good and motivational but not appropriate as a first impression perhaps). Main point is that inflicting literal injury is only one form of SH and aside from causing unpleasant reminders/triggers it is also going to alienate people who perhaps need to read the article in more detail; they'll see that and assume it's not for them when in reality SH unfortunately takes many more subtle forms. ~2025-40261-79 (talk) 21:19, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While there are other forms of self-harm, cutting is by far the most recognisable and prevalent. I disagree that the current image is either "ignorant" or "sensational". It is not needlessly graphic, it is informative, and medical in nature. In the absence of any alternative images the general consensus among the many discussions on this subject are that this is the most suitable image for an encyclopaedic article. Polyamorph (talk) 14:03, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Polyamorph, the current image is neither "ignorant" nor "sensational", it is factual and recognizable, whereas pictures of ice cubes, or "head pressed against wall" would be confusing to the reader, and appear to be avoiding the seriousness of the issue. - Arjayay (talk) 15:23, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This article uses a few definitions of "self-harm" (which is actually a bit of an issue for some sections on statistics and such, but I digress), but mostly doesn't include self-destructive behaviors that are non-self-injurious. (Also is walking alone at night self-destructive? Maybe in some high-crime cities [IMO overstated even there, as a fem from a high-crime city], or in some very austere rural environments, but not in most places.) Now, this article does discuss forms of SH/SI other than cutting, but as Polyamorph says, cutting is the best-known form, and it's also a form that can easily be represented in an image, whereas say a bottle of pesticide (the most common form of SH in some countries) would not be very recognizable.
The answer we come back to every time this is discussed is that there's no picture that will make everyone happy, but no good case for having no picture, and no clear contender for a picture that will make fewer people unhappy than the current one. Make it more graphic and it's sensationalizing, make it less graphic and it's downplaying... healed scars from fairly deep cuts are a decent compromise. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 16:10, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Split DSH vs. NSSI?

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I alluded to this in the section above, but a few years ago when I was trying to see if I could keep this article at GA, I ran into a problem that eventually made me give up on it: There are essentially four different definitions at play here. None of which are entirely consistent across sources but broadly can be summarized as:

Deliberate Non-suicidal
Self-harm
  • Includes suicide and attempts
  • Usually includes self-poisoning
  • Sometimes includes passive harm like eating disorders
  • Excludes suicide and attempts
  • Usually includes self-poisoning
  • Sometimes includes passive harm like eating disorders
Self-injury
  • Includes suicide and attempts
  • Sometimes includes self-poisoning
  • Usually excludes passive harm like eating disorders
  • Excludes suicide and attempts
  • Sometimes includes self-poisoning
  • Usually excludes passive harm like eating disorders

The "deliberate" column is more common in British sources, the "non-suicidal" more in American, with the rest of the world being a mix. (Also note that there's certain things all of these generally exclude, like religious or culturally-accepted aesthetic self-wounding.)

In the course of that effort a few years ago, I wrote a set index article, Self-inflicted wound, to cover the wider variety of things accorded that label. I've been chewing on this, ever since, what's the best way to handle this article, and the more I think about it, the more I think the solution is a split.

What I envision is:

  • Split content on NSSI off to Non-suicidal self-injuryNon-suicidal self-injury. The scope of this article would primarily be external tissue damage (cutting/burning/etc.) plus self-poisoning, although being clear about which sources cover poisoning and which don't. This article can have more focus on the psychology of NSSI as a phenomenon distinct from suicide attempts.
  • Split content on DSH off to Deliberate self-harmDeliberate self-harm. This article can focus more on the physiological aspects of DSH, since there's lots of papers about, say, incidence of self-inflicted cutting wounds that don't draw a distinction between suicidal and non-suicidal.
  • Create a brief article at this title (either a broad-concept article or prose-y SIA, depending how you look at it) entirely about the definition of "self-harm" and "self-injury", which could be built outward from what we currently have at Self-harm § Classification and terminology. Alternately, do that at the existing SIA Self-inflicted wound and redirect this there.

I don't know when/if I'd have time to do this myself but I thought I'd ask others' thoughts. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 08:37, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like a good idea; in my brief time editing this article, I found the psychology vs. physiology contributed to some confusing phrasing or ideas. Pointer to Address (talk) 11:57, 25 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking further at the article, I'm thinking more that the best approach for a broad-concept article is to expland Self-inflicted wound into an exploration of the classification of and terminology for varying kinds of self-inflicted wound, and redirect Self-harm either to that or to a section of it. This would better allow us to, among other things, discuss the overlap between pathological and non-pathological forms of self-wounding. Taking what we currently have in §§ "Classification" & "Terminology", and expanding more from sources that critically analyze those trends (e.g. Favazza's "Bodies Under Siege" and McAllister's "Multiple meanings of self harm: A critical review"), and combining that with the existing content at Self-inflicted wound about forms of self-wounding that aren't usually categorized as self-harm (ideally with somewhat better sourcing than the mostly-priamry-sourced array I put there years ago) seems like the best way forward. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:14, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that could work, many of the categories in the current article (such as animal self harm) would certainly work better under Self-inflicted wound anyway. Pointer to Address (talk) 06:34, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think at least initially the "Other animals" section could be part of Self-inflicted wound, although there might be a case to split off to Self-injury in non-human species or something like that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:35, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Pointer to Address: I've thrown some thoughts of what the highest-level article could look like at Draft:Self-inflicted wound. This would be by far the easiest part of splitting the article, and what I have there is nothing close to a complete draft, but I thought that drafting it would be a good way to start thinking about how to frame this. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 09:21, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like a good start. I'm not sure how I can help since I'm of course quite new to the site but, if there's anything I can, I'd love to. Favazza's work seems like it'll provide a good source, since a lot of what he discusses in Bodies Under Siege falls under modification and its differences (at least from what I could tell, I'm sure you would know more). Pointer to Address (talk) 09:09, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note to self/others: Should update Favazza cite from 2nd edition to 3rd. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:34, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note to others, I have done this and it is not longer needed. ^ Pointer to Address (talk) 07:29, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a good idea as self harm is a somewhat vague term. In literature I mainly see NSSI in reference to cutting (burning, and other injury included as well just usually not the focus). Splitting the two off would allow us to go into appropriate amount of detail on what people stereotypically see as self harm on the self injury page while still keeping it at a reasonable size and covering the other forms in the deliberate self harm article. IntentionallyDense (Contribs) 15:51, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Based on initial positive feedback, I'm going to tag the article with {{split}} to make this a formal discussion. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 20:15, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative split(s)

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  • Split into Deliberate self-harm and Non-suicidal self-harm OR Deliberate self-injury and Non-suicidal self-injury. I don't really understand the DSH-NSSI proposal? Why split into just DSH and NSSI, considering that option doesn't account for DSI or NSSH as you've stated above? Another thing I don't get is that are there any medical differences between self-harm and self-injury other than semantics? ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 13:39, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Another point, I get that there are inconsistencies in literature regarding the definitions of SH/SI and how much they overlap, but the differences between deliberate and non-suicidal are more explicit than, say, the inclusion or exclusion of eating disorders and self-poisoning (which maps to the difference between self-harm and self-injury as your table suggests), despite how there aren't really any differences between the terms "harm" and "injury" if both of them point to the same thing. ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 13:55, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    NSSI is used most commonly in literature (at least in my experience) which is worth something. IntentionallyDense (Contribs) 21:23, 28 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether SH and SI are the same thing depends on source. Some say that both terms include things other than external tissue damage. Some say that neither does. Some say that SH includes it but SI doesn't (and of those, some include passive damage like eating disorders and some don't). Personally, if I were in charge of terminology, we would scope this as "deliberate self-harm" and "non-suicidal self-harm", but per IntentionallyDense it's not clear to me that that would actually be in keeping with how most sources write about the topic. Perhaps this is because people are more likely to draw the non-suicidal distinction when it comes to behaviors that could be more easily mistaken for suicidal, especially cutting. NSSH that isn't necessarily NSSI is more likely to just be talked about in terms of the relevant diagnosis, e.g. anorexia. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 03:44, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that NSSI is used more in literature, per IntentionallyDense and per the MSD manual, and that NSSI should be a split vector if this split would go through. That still leaves the problem of DSH/DSI though.
    Also, I've noticed that ICD-10 uses "intentional self-harm", and "intentional" would map into "deliberate" no? How about ISH/ISI? ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 08:25, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think @Tamzin last point here about people needing to make the distinction that behaviours such as cutting or injuring oneself is not always a suicide attempt is the key consideration here. I'm kind of spit balling right now but I believe the term NSSI was created out of the need to make that clarification as literature has shown time and time again that when people see physical manifestations of self harm they jump to suicide (mainly discussed in relation to parents seeing signs of self harm in their kids but I'm sure there's some studies out there on adults perceptions of other adults SH). For this reason, I don't think "intentional self injury" and "intentional self harm" would be appropriate page titles as I would argue that any split made should include the term NSSI.
    Out of interest, Deliberate self-harm returns 1,605 hits in pubmed with the first couple of sources giving the definition acts such as self-cutting or self-poisoning, carried out deliberately, with or without the intention of suicide.[1][2]
    Non-suicidal self-harm returns 137 results (lets round up to 200 since I'm too lazy to figure out how to account for spelling variations) and the best definition i could find was non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and defined as intentional destruction of one’s own body tissue without suicidal intent and for purposes not socially sanctioned or, more broadly, as non-suicidal self-harm (NSSH) encompassing self-harming behaviors such as overdosing and drowning.[3]
    Deliberate self-injury returned 48 hits with an inconsistent definition.
    Non-suicidal self-injury returns 2,172 hits with the most common definition being something along the lines of direct and deliberate destruction of one's body tissue without suicidal intent[4]
    Intentional self-injury returned only one result and intentional self-harm returned 15.
    Based on frequency of usage in literature, I'd agree with my conclusion that NSSI should be used as a title for sure, however I'm wondering how others would feel about the two potential pages being Deliberate self-harm as kind of the broader term and Non-suicidal self injury as the more specific term. This would better represent what terms are used in research which would allow for easier sourcing. IntentionallyDense (Contribs) 15:29, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @IntentionallyDense I don't know if this is relevant, but per Google Scholar:
    DSH returned ~65100 results
    DSI returned ~4590 results
    NSSI returned ~41400 results
    NSSH returned ~5590 results
    ISH returned ~15200 results
    ISI returned ~2970 results
    So:
    • I agree that NSSI should be a split vector, and
    • ISH is definitely used more frequently internationally as compared to your initial search (don't really want to but I'd point out that PubMed is highly based off American articles and journals, which in turn use MSD terminology more than ICD)
    • A considerable portion of all results in each group have inconsistent definitions (agreeing with you), except NSSI (MSD), ISH (ICD), and DSH (Indian sources)
    ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 15:53, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So it's either DSH or ISH now is it ;-; ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 16:03, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for this, i was too lazy to search scholar as well so I appreciate this. I’m not sure how my pubmed search only returned 1 result for ISH since it does seem to be used quite a bit. I would say because of DSH having more usage in scholar I’m leaning towards that as a term but I will have to do a further dig into the terminology first (currently on mobile, will do this later) IntentionallyDense (Contribs) 17:37, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If your thinking is that DSH would be the base article and NSSI would be the sub-article, I'm not necessarily opposed to that (rather than my idea of a top-level broad-concept/set-index article), given that NSSI is admittedly a strict subset of DSH, but I guess my hesitation is because DSH is a somewhat dated concept that a lot of authorities actively avoid using, and this would have the effect of giving it more prominence than it currently does. Sometimes that's inevitable; we have a similar problem with the article "Transsexual", where that concept is somewhat dated but is still used quite a bit in scholarly sources and hasn't been fully replaced with any other one concept (since it nontrivially diverges from "Transgender"), so we do still use the concept on Wikipedia. I guess the real question is: Do most sources treat NSSI as a mere subset of DSH, or as an alternate categorization scheme? -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 18:59, 29 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Again pulling from Google Scholar,
    I wasn't able to find sources that state NSSI-DSH is a categorization scheme (yet), but that's how the situation is. ///// JUMPINGISNOTACRIME 06:14, 30 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expansions to "Signs and symptoms"

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I've noticed the Signs and symptoms section is pretty small. I was wondering if anyone thinks it may be worthwhile to add some expansions?

I believe there's evidence (though I would need to look further in) that self harm can cause heart issues. I also think perhaps expanding on the practice of hiding self harm either here or in another part of the article would be beneficial. There's evidence that suggests that different groups are more likely to hide their self harm, and I think it could be an interesting addition. Pointer to Address (talk) 11:44, 25 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correlations between psychiatric conditions/symptoms and physiological ones are notoriously difficult to work with from a WP:MEDRS perspective. Between poor diagnostic criteria on the psych side, sampling biases in favor of people who've been hospitalized, and a litany of potential confounding variables, it can be very difficult to figure out whether there's any causal link, and many papers you'll find on such topics won't attempt to draw one; they'll just report the correlation in their n=90 or whatever study. For instance, to take the example of bipolar disorder, its correlation with sleep issues is pretty clearly non-coincidental, but it's a lot harder to say what the causal link is with its correlation with addiction (do psychological symptoms of BD push people toward substance abuse, or are both results of the same underlying neurological pathology, or both?). Then you get some even more out-there correlations like that between gender dysphoria and joint hypermobility, which pretty solidly seems to be a thing but no one has any idea of why. (This message typed with four double-jointed fingers...)
I'd be particularly skeptical of studies on heart disease and self-harm, just because lots of people self-harm, lots of people have heart disease, and there's obvious commorbidities like generalized anxiety disorder that correlate with both self-harm and heart disease independently, in addition to the basic Texas sharpshooter risks that arise when trying to correlate any two common conditions. I don't mean to prejudge the evidence, depending on what you've found, but that's my starting point at least. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 06:51, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's totally fair, I agree. I do think that expanding on concealment, however, could be a good addition as there is (seemingly) plenty of literature on it. Pointer to Address (talk) 07:05, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, there's definitely more to be said there, especially the seeming paradox of self-harming for attention versus concealing evidence of self-harm. Currently the article hand-waves around that with A common belief regarding self-harm is that it is an attention-seeking behavior; however, in many cases, this is inaccurate—which, I mean, isn't wrong, but I don't think is the best explanation we can give. This bottom-up review at p. 197, citing this study of young self-harmers seems like an interesting source on young people intentionally keeping self-harm secret to avoid being seen as attention-seeking. This review at pp. 11&14 also seems useful. There may be yet a better source out there; I'd like to find something that addresses in greater depth the contexts in which some people do want their self-harm to be noticed. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 07:26, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I found this systematic review that has many sources on reasoning for self harm, many of which (enough that I don't feel the need to list them all.) relate to reasons not to conceal such as to 'show off' strength, garner empathy and exerting interpersonal influence. I found before I started editing the article, there was some bias towards hiding self harm and using it to cope rather than manipulate, so I definitely agree we should try to look for sources where people wouldn't want to conceal.
This article on concealment also seems promising. Pointer to Address (talk) 07:47, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's one of those cases where a lot of sources like to emphasize that self-harm often/usually isn't about attention-seeking because they wish to dispel a negative stereotype, and they aren't wrong about that, but sometimes risk understating the degree to which that stereotype is sometimes true. Of course that doesn't mean we need to write about it in a way that affirms associations of being self-centered or manipulative; attention-seeking self-harm can be a legitimate cry for help, not just something performative. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 08:03, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm having some issues with understanding sandboxes, so, apologies if this is the incorrect way to go about things.
I created a section on concealment on my sandbox and was wondering if you might be able to take a look before I add it? I think it'll serve as a good start, but it definitely needs some additions. Pointer to Address (talk) 10:00, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You did the sandbox right. :) For benefit of anyone reading this in the future, in case you later change your sandbox, this is the revision you're referring to and this is a diff of the changes you're proposing.
Looking at this, it looks good overall. I see you have 3 {{citation needed}}s in there; 2 are next to a citation so I'm assuming you just forgot to remove them? The other one, though, it would be good to find a citation for before adding to the article. Other than that, a few stylistic concerns but I can tweak those myself; the one thing I'll flag is "There exists evidence": That's a bit weasely and makes it ambiguous whether we're saying this in the encyclopedia's voice. Either we're asserting it as fact, and we can just say "Many people who self-harm...", or we're hedging by attributing it to the source, in which case we should be clearer about that. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 10:39, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]