Why Do Girls Cut?

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Why do people hurt themselves? In a journal article from the American Journal of Psychotherapy, Louise Ruberman notes that about 2.1 million teens suffer from nonsuicidal self-injury, or NSSI. Young women between the ages of 14 and 18 years old take part in NSSI due to poor development of the relationship with their mothers, childhood abuse, and psychiatric disorders. Although there are multiple ways of causing injury to oneself, cutting of the skin as a means of self-mutilation is said to be the most common (Ruberman 119). We will start out by examining the problems that occur during the relationship development between a mother and a daughter at a young age.

Gender role identity and body image are directly related to the relationship a young girl has with her mother while she is growing up. During the young ages, a girl needs to feel accepted and positively identified by her mother in order to be happy with her femininity. Mothers play a very important role in helping young girls establish their self-esteem, because a young girl’s first role model is most often her mom (Daniluk & Usmiani 47). If this relationship somehow goes astray, the young girl may easily form a negative body image of herself. Behaviors of self abuse often occur right around the age of puberty, and the reaction to a negative self-esteem may result in NSSI and cutting. According to Ruberman (120), girls who choose cutting as their means of self-injury are using their skin as a “canvas” to cut open and obtain some control over their own body. This behavior is derived from the lack of control they feel they posses. Ruberman (120), states in her article that a mother’s job is to stand by her daughter as she grows from birth without interfering with her own fea...

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...ans of communication when less intense strategies have failed, such as yelling or speaking. All in all, the decision to take part in self-punishment is highly influenced by the behavior of others as we are growing up.

Works Cited

Glassman, L. H., Weierich, M. R., Hooley, J. M., Deliberto, T. L., & Nock, M. K. (2007). Child

maltreatment, non-suicidal self-injury, and the mediating role of self-criticism. Behaviour

Research & Therapy, 45(10), 2483-2490. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2007.04.002.

Ruberman, L. (2011). Girls who Cut: Treatment in an outpatient psychodynamic

psychotherapy practice with adolescent girls and young adult women. American

Journal Of Psychotherapy, 65(2), 117-132.

Usmiani, S., & Daniluk, J. (1997). Mothers and their adolescent daughters: Relationship between

self-esteem, gender role identity.. Journal Of Youth & Adolescence, 26(1), 45.

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