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A new behavioural test that does not rely on the patient to express his or her thoughts appears to identify those who are at risk of cutting and other self-injurious behaviours, a new study shows.
"People have engaged in self-injurious behaviour for thousands of years, and a dilemma as old as the problem itself is that the only method we have of assessing thoughts of self-injury is to ask a person if he is thinking about hurting himself," said Dr Matthew K. Nock of Harvard University.
The problem is that people often do not want to tell others about their self-injurious thoughts or plans "because they are embarrassed, they do not want to be stopped, or possibly because they are unaware of the severity of their self-injurious thoughts".
Dr Nock and colleagues tested a new method of assessing peoples' thoughts using their reaction time on a computerised test showing images and words related to self-injury. The test revealed significant differences in the responses of people who had engaged in non-suicidal self-injury compared with those who had not.
- REUTERS
