This book provides an appreciative sociological engagement with accounts of the embodied
practice of self-injury. It shows that in order to understand self-injury it is necessary to
engage with widely circulating narratives about the nature of bodies including that they are
separate from yet containers of 'emotion'. Using a sociological approach the book examines
what self-injury is how it functions and why someone might engage in it. It pays close
attention to the corporeal aspects of self-injury attending to the complex ways in which
'lived experience' is narrated. By interrogating the way in which healthcare and psychiatric
systems shape our understanding of self-injury Self-Injury Medicine and Society aims to
re-invigorate traditional discourse on the subject. Combining analytical theory with real-life
accounts this book provides an engaging study which is both thought-provoking and informative.
It will appeal to an interdisciplinary readership and scholars in the fields of medical
sociology and health studies in particular.
