Welcome to Self-Harm Harm Reduction!

This website is dedicated to helping people who self-harm (without suicidal intent) manage their self-harm if they cannot or do not want to completely stop self-harming. This information may also be useful to people trying to quite self-harm. Although this website is meant for people who do self-harm, some of the information may also be useful to friends, family members, and carers of people who self-harm.

What is self-harm?

There are many definitions of self-harm. Some people define self-harm is harming yourself in any way, regardless of intent. This includes suicide attempts, eating disorders, drug use (including smoking and drinking alcohol) and other things. Other definitions are more restrictive, saying that self-harm does not include things like eating disorders, drug use, and suicide attempts. This definition is also called Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) and is more common in North America. On this website, self-harm refers to when someone intentionally harms their body (no matter how severely) without trying to commit suicide.

What is harm reduction?

Harm reduction (also called harm minimisation) is doing things to mitigate the risk of potentially dangerous actions. Examples of harm reduction are...

• Needle exchanges for people who inject drugs
• Using a seat belt while in a car
• Using condoms
• Vaccines and washing your hands to prevent spread of disease
• Nicotine patches
• Having a designated driver

What is harm reduction for self-harm?

There are lots of different ways to reduce and prevent harm from self-harm. Some of the most well-known forms treatments for self-harm (holding ice, using rubber bands, etc.) are actually harm reduction techniques. But there are also other ways to reduce harm, like...

• Knowing how to avoid arteries when cutting
• Delaying self-harm
• Understanding when to seek medical attention
• Taking good care of wounds so they heal well
• Reducing the frequency and/or severity of injuries
• Using clean tools to self-harm to avoid infection

It's not a one size fits all approach, different people will find different things helpful. Harm reduction is all about meeting a person where they are at and not pushing yourself to do things that make you feel uncomfortable.

You can find more resources for self-harm harm reduction here.