Deliberate self-harm (DSH) includes any deliberate behaviour that damages your health or well-being. This page focuses on deliberate physical injury.DSH is very common - the best available research indicates that one in ten people have self-harmed by age 16. This is equivalent to about three teenagers self-harming every hour in the UK. It's the second commonest reason for a visit to a casualty department. Four times as many girls as boys self-harm. The commonest form is cutting (more than 66 per cent of DSH). Other forms include burning, punching, headbanging, hair pulling, self-poisoning, insertion of foreign objects, excessive nail biting, scratching, picking wounds, tying a noose around the neck … in fact almost any imaginable way.It's often done to relieve the pressure of very intense emotions and falls broadly into five groups:

• anger and frustration (wanting to lash out at something)
• low self-esteem (self-punishment)
• to distract oneself from distressing and inescapable circumstances
• to give a sense of control when the rest of life is out of control
• needing to harm in order to feel that one exists.