When the Body Is the Target: Self-Harm, Pain, and Traumatic Attachments

by Sharon Klayman Farber

In this comprehensive and insightful work, Dr. Sharon K. Farber provides an invaluable resource for the mental health professional who is struggling to understand self-harm and its origins. Using attachment theory to explain how addictive connections to pain and suffering develop, she discusses various kinds and functions of self-harm behavior. From eating disorders to body modifications such as tattooing, Dr. Farber explores the language of self-harm, and the translation of that language and its psychic functions in the therapeutic setting. She tells us, 'When the body weeps tears of blood, we need to wonder what terrible sorrows cannot be spoken.' Brilliantly illustrated with rich clinical material, this book offers a practical approach to the diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of the increasing number of patients whose emotions are expressed through bodily harm. The challenges of working with patients who tend to view the world of relationships in terms of predator and prey are clearly explicated and the stormy countertransference responses that threaten to destroy the treatment are given a full hearing. Finally, she shows how the attachment relationship formed in treatment can repair the traumatic attachment in mind, body, psyche, and soul, and can serve as the cornerstone of therapeutic change. A Jason Aronson Book

Genres: Mental Health, Psychology

580 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Paltia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting approach to the understanding of self harm. This book is peppered with literary references which added to it’s readability. Farber always honors those she writes about. She even analyzes R. Crumb’s comix creations as sublimation. Hmmm. It is a comprehensive romp through psychoanalytical land. Read and learn.

[stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good stuff, but huge and difficult to work through the entire book. interesting though for the chapters on traumatic attachment as related to SI, which i think is often overlooked in the literature.

[Lisa Fogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an exception tool or clinical practice and work with good education and connection to understanding of various forms of self harm. Highly recommend for any clinical practitioner.