Self-Injury and the Role of the Human Service Professional

Given the broad field of human services, human service professionals are likely to encounter self-injury. Thus it is critical that they become knowledgeable about self-injury and understand how to best intervene with clients who self-injure. Through case studies the readers will learn about helpful ways to respond to a client who harms him/her self through the use of a non-judgmental and supportive stance. This manuscript has direct implications for direct human service providers, human service educators, human service students, and supervisors by demonstrating the wide continuum of services humans service professionals can provide to clients who self-injure including: utilizing basic helping skills, educating oneself, issues of confidentiality, how to make referrals, and the importance of creating self-injury protocols