Body Language of Self-Harm
Cue: Self-Harm.
Synonym(s): Pinching The Skin, Squeezing Pimples, Scratching The Skin, Cracking Knuckles, Plucking Hair, Hair Pulling (self), Pulling At The Skin, Cracking Knuckles.
Description: A particularly aggressive scratch, pinch, or clawing at the body during emotional stress.
In One Sentence: Self harm is a sign of emotional stress.
How To Use it: While self harming can produce feelings of control and emotional release, it only masks underlying emotional issues. If you are a self-harmer, find someone you trust and work through your problems in a more constructive way.
Even mild self harming such as self-pinching, jaw clenching, body gripping and wringing, and so forth, are not positive signals. By identifying these patterns and discover the cause it will help move you in a more constructive direction.
Simply eliminating the body language can, at times, and in mid cases, reduce negative emotions by eliminating the outer symptoms, however, they will not deal with the true root. Talk to someone you trust if you are a habitual self-harmer. Build the courage to vocalize the real issue.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I’m losing control of the situation and my emotions, and am using self pain to re-establish my ability to influence things that are happening to me.”
Variant: Self-harm can take many forms, but all forms are motivated by the need to control the source of emotional pain by taking it in one’s own hands. A person might pinch the skin, scratch the skin, squeeze pimples, crack the knuckles, pluck or pull hair and so forth. See Hand Clenching or Fist Clenching.
Cue In Action: a) As the teenager suffered, she cut herself on the wrist and abdomen. While it didn’t resolve her underlying emotional issues, it provided a way that she could control the pain she was experiencing. b) The stress caused him to pick and pull at his pimples. c) Running the fingers through her knotted hair felt nice as she dealt with the loss of her grandmother. d) He plucked nose hair while thinking of how his boss had refused a raise.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Self-harm is linked to clenching and gripping body language as both are ways people show that they harbour negative feelings and emotions. Pinching the skin, scratching and pulling are ways a person regains control over the root of their pain. When a person self-harms, they are showing others that they are insecure, have negative feelings, low self-esteem, or are in immediate distress.
We should be particularly attuned to self harm that happens suddenly as this can predict a change in emotional state. Also carefully watch for the amplitude, frequency and force behind the self harm to monitor the underlying emotional state.
Clenching and gripping can have many other forms as well, including clenching the jaws tight or even talking through the teeth, cracking knuckles, pulling the hair or even plucking it, pinching one’s self, and clenching the fists by turning them into a ball.
In my observations of other people, I have noticed some peculiar emotional behaviour that includes the grotesque such as squeezing pimples to plucking nose hairs to more damaging and extreme behaviours such as hitting the head and scratching called “self harm” but can include any other painful and repetitive behaviours serving to sooth emotional stress.
Cue Cluster: Watch for multiple cues of self-harm. We often see fidgeting, pacing, blushing or blanching, tug at their skin such as their ears, nose or hair.
Body Language Category: Auto contact or self touching, Aggressive body language, Clenching and gripping, Emotional body language, Energy Displacement, Hostile body language, Idiosyncratic body language, Low confidence body language, Negative body language, Stressful body language, Worry body language.
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