Student video aims at stopping self-injury

4:27 p.m., Dec. 15, 2004--A University of Delaware honors nursing program is earning widespread recognition for its informational project on self-harm, which is often referred to by young people as “cutting.”

Students in UD’s honors nursing community clinical group interviewed two young women who have been involved in cutting, a practice in which they cut themselves using sharp objects.

The students gathered information on resources that are available to deal with it, published a brochure and created a powerful video titled “Self-Harm: Cutting to the Chase.” The brochure and video are being made available to area middle and high schools.

“We had been researching the topic of self-mutilation and decided to do a documentary that could be shown to health classes in middle and high schools in the region,” Lisa McBeth-Snyder, an instructor in the College of Health and Nursing Sciences, said. “We want to tell friends how they can help friends, teachers how they can help students and parents how they can help their children.”

McBeth-Snyder recommended the project to the group based on the experiences of her daughter, who first heard about cutting when she was a student in middle school and who was not sure how to deal with others who were becoming involved in the practice.

Although some of the students in the group were aware of the problem beforehand, they said they have found the project to be an eye opener.

“The main thing I have learned through the project, and also through our cutters, is that are there are many different reasons why people choose to mutilate their bodies, but mainly it is because they have no other way to release or show their emotions,” Lindsay Fanelli, a nursing senior from White Plains, N.Y., said. “Therefore, they inflict pain on the outside to match the pain they are feeling on the inside. Others feel dead on the inside and seeing the blood from the cuts reminds them they are alive. It is a growing problem that is affecting more people than I would like to see.”

Meredith Reardon, a senior nursing student from Downingtown, Pa., said she knew several cutters before the project and now “understands a little better what they were going through.”

Reardon said she has learned there are no “typical” cutters, that each person among the estimated 2 million in the United States who engage in self-harm has her or his own story and reasons. “It can happen to anyone, all races and backgrounds,” she said. “Some self-injurers have been sexually or physically abused. Some feel so much emotional pain that they can't put it into words. I have learned not to ignore it or minimize it because it is often a cry for help.”

Working with psychiatric patients, Ashley Borkowski, a senior nursing student from Southington, Conn., said she had been well aware of the problem before the project. “I have learned that it isn't something that should be hidden,” she said. “It should be out in the open no matter how scary it might be to a parent, friend or the cutter him or herself.”

Dawn Chernokal, a nursing senior from Bear, said she had learned that the healing and recovery period for cutters is often “long and hard” and that they need a great deal of support.

Fanelli said the goal of the project is to increase awareness throughout the community by getting the information in the hands of school officials, students, parents, teachers and guidance counselors.

“We thought if we could get the information out there, we could help others notice if their friends or family members are cutting and get them help before it gets too involved,” she said.

“We also tried to target cutters and convince them there are other ways to cope and they need to tell someone they trust in order to get help,” Fanelli added. “The main message is to tell someone, to break the silence, because that is the only way to start the process of getting better. If no one knows, then no one can help you.”

For more information on the program, contact McBeth-Snyder at (302) 831-8395.

Article by Neil Thomas

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