Corey Robinson, Observer TeenAge writer; Tuesday, January 11, 2005; ... Self-mutilation, the practice of self-abuse, is one of the biggest problems facing teenagers today.

It's called many things -- self-inflicted violence, self-injury, self-harm, parasuicide, delicate cutting, self-abuse, self-mutilation (this last particularly seems to annoy people who self-injure).

Self-mutilation & Suicide ... Piper, Dorothy.(1995): Teenage suicide and self-harm, Brighton, Trust for the study of adolescence, Tapewise

"Dabrowski was keenly interested in self-mutilation as a phenomenon suggestive of higher than average sensitivity. ... Teenage self-harm widespread; More than one in 10 adolescents has

People who cut or self-injure sometimes have other mental health problems that contribute to their emotional tension.

Those unfortunate souls who find cutting insufficiently harmful have taken mutilation to the next level with something doctors call "self-embedding disorder." According to the Chicago Tribune,

Self-harm, also known as self-injury, self-inflicted violence, self-injurious behavior, or self-mutilation, can be defined as the deliberate, direct injury of one's own body that causes tissue...

The incidence of self-mutilation is highest among teenage females, patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and patients diagnosed with one of the dissociative disorders.

The frequency of self-mutilation by young women fits into a context of increasing mental and physical health problems in teenage girls...

What are the types of Self-Mutilation? ... The act usually is started in the teenage years and increases in the twenties. Most people’s need to harm ends in their thirties, but this is not always