Psyche on the Skin

A History of Self-harm

Sarah Chaney

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781789141481
  9781780237503
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780237961
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: World History

Self-harm is thought by many to be a modern epidemic: a phenomenon of the late twentieth century, a symptom of extreme emotional turmoil in young people, particularly young women. Yet it was 150 years ago, within early asylum psychiatry, that self-mutilation was first codified as a category of behaviour, and explanations for a variety of self-injurious acts were conceived very differently.
Psyche on the Skin charts the secret history of self-harm. The book describes its many forms, from sexual self-mutilation and hysterical malingering in the late Victorian period, to self-castrating religious sects, to self-mutilation and self-destruction in art, music and popular culture. Sarah Chaney's refreshing historical approach refutes the notion that self-harm has any universal meaning – that it necessarily says something specific about an individual or group, or that it can ever be understood outside the historical and cultural context of a particular era.
Drawing on her personal experiences, written in an engaging style and containing many powerful images, Psyche on the Skin challenges the misconceptions and controversies surrounding self-harm. The book is crucial reading for professionals in the field as well as all those affected by this act.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1 THE PRE-HISTORY OF SELF-HARM: From Ancient Castration to Medicinal Bloodletting
• 2 MORBID IMPULSE AND MORAL INSANITY: The Emergence of Self-mutilation in Late Nineteenth-century Psychiatry
• 3 SEXUAL SELF-MUTILATION: Masturbation, Masculinity and Self-control in Late Victorian Britain
• 4 MOTIVELESS MALINGERERS: Multiple Personality, Attention-seeking and Hysteria around 1900
• 5 FOCAL SUICIDE: Hypersexuality, Masochism and the Death Instinct in Psychoanalysis
• 6 DELICATE SELF-CUTTING: Schizophrenia and the ‘Borderline’ in Post-war North America
• 7 TRIGGER HAPPY: Culture, Contagion and Trauma in the Internet Age
• CONCLUSION: Three Narratives of Bodily Harm
• REFERENCES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• HELP AND ADVICE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PHOTO ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INDEX