Self-Mutilation and Symptoms of Depression, Anxiety, and Borderline Personality Disorder

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between self-mutila-tion and symptoms of depression and anxiety in a nonclinical population. Self-mutilators reported significantly more symptoms of depression and anxiety than did the control group. When the group of self-mutilators was divided into individ-uals who cut themselves and individuals who harm themselves in other ways, we found that the between-group differences were primarily due to individuals with a history of cutting. Yet when symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD) were statistically controlled, all significant between-group differences in depressive and anxious symptoms were reduced to nonsignificant. These findings highlight the importance of assessing symptoms of BPD in self-mutilators, regardless of diagnosis. Self-mutilation is defined as deliberate harm a history of self-mutilation (Briere & Gil, 1998; Nijman et al., 1999; Zlotnick, Mattia,to the body without suicidal intent and in-cludes acts such as cutting and burning (Fa- & Zimmerman, 1999). Self-mutilation is also observed in community samples, with ap-vazza, 1998; Walsh & Rosen, 1988). Althoug