The Tip of the Iceberg: Treating Self-Injury

Mental health professionals have struggled to understand self-injury for decades, with varying degrees of success and compassion. Because of the complexity of self-harming behaviours and a variety of issues involved in self-injury, clinical responses have often been only moderately beneficial, and in some cases distinctly harmful.

This course will offer helpful guidelines to workers who wish to improve their capacity to respond usefully to clients who self-harm. All the information given to participants will be immediately translated into conveying the same information to the client. Numerous activities and exercises will be used as therapeutic tools. Specific issues and strategies will be explored, as well as workers’ limitations in dealing with clients who self- injure. Participants will be equipped with a handbook full of clinical and practical exercises and treatment activities that can be used the very next day. With the use of experiential group
activities and movie clips, it will be a high energy and fun educational day.

This course will offer helpful guidelines to workers who wish to improve their capacity to respond usefully to clients who self-harm.

• Understanding self-injury and its context
• Models of self-injury
• Strategies to reduce or stop self-injury
• Various treatment approaches which can be integrated to create an effective recovery model

The course is designed in such a way that all the information given to professionals is immediately translated into conveying the same information to the client. Numerous activities and exercises to be used as therapeutic tools are given.

• AASW: Members can accrue 7 CPD hours by participating in this activity
• ACA: Members can accrue 5 CPD points by participating in this activity

A certificate of attendance will be emailed to participants following the workshop.