This step-by-step guide is designed to help victims of self-inflicted violence understand why they feel the need to hurt themselves and to take steps to change their behaviour. Most victims tend to be teenage girls or women in their twenties. To hurt themselves is sometimes a way of focusing and controlling overwhelming feelings of chaos. For others, it frees them from the numbness that defends them from the pain of previous abuse. Alderman helps them to explore the reasons for self-abuse and its impact on their lives, and how to break the habit, either through psychotherapy or on their own.