Strong - A bright red scream: self-mutilation and the language of pain

Praise for Marilee Strongs A Bright Red Scream

A compelling tour of the trauma and science of self-injuryrichly reported and achingly well-written.

Time

A Bright Red Scream is thick with scientific studies, up-to-date research andmost importanttender portraits of real-life cutters. Strong sheds much light on this complex compulsion and the people who live with such grueling sorrow.

New York Post

Sensitive and thorough, Marilee Strong writes with passion and clarity. A Bright Red Scream has the hallmark of a classic work on a topic that will soon be impossible to ignore.

The San Diego Union-Tribune

Thorough and disquietingMost powerful, and painful, are the cutters own stories of hurting themselves in a tragic pursuit to escape their pasts.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

[A] fascinating bookinsightful and articulate.

San Francisco Examiner

Riveting and dynamically written, this book is an important addition to psychological literature.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Humane, empathetic, and informed exploration of a frightening complex of behaviors; it will be valuable to professionals, families, friends, and most of all to cutters themselves.

Kirkus

Strong manages to explicate self-injury as a symptom and a disorder itselfa morbid form of self-helpwell and movingly. An impressive complement to Mary Piphers best-selling explication of the woes of adolescent girls, Reviving Ophelia, and Daphne Scholinski and Jane Meredith Adams The Last Time I Wore a Dress.

Booklist

This book has no peeras an informative, compelling read that gets across the suffering and plight of those who self-mutilate while offering accurate, up-to-date information and realistic hope for recovery. I recommend it to patients, their families and friends, and professionals.

Charles R. Swenson, M.D., the American Psychiatric Associations journal Psychiatric Services

Beyond being an extremely illuminating and informative analysis, A Bright Red Scream presents a sympathetic, emotional, personal encounter with self-injury. It is testimony to the power of an inquiry that dares to engage with its subject matterStrong does not allow you, the reader, to assume a clinical distance. She brings you into the lives, into the intimate details and the pain of those who engage in self-injury.

Mental Help Net

A passionate book that casts much-needed light on one of the darkest of family secrets. Strong not only captures the raw honesty of cutters themselves, but also makes the connection between self-injury and child abuse. It is this telling of secrets, this sharing of truth, that is the first step in overcoming toxic shame.

John Bradshaw, bestselling author of Homecoming and Family Secrets

A Bright Red Scream should be required reading for victims of self-mutilation and their families and for anyone interested in the topic.

Armando Favazza, M.D., author of Bodies Under Siege

This beautifully written, sensitively told account of people who mutilate themselves is filled with riveting stories that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned. Every person who has ever taken a razor to her body, along with the professionals who treat such women and men, will benefit from reading this moving book.

Therapist Lillian Rubin, author of The Transcendent Child

From readers:

Your book is so good that I have continued to try to get help and actually found a therapist who accepts me. I was ready to give up when I bought your book and then realized if you can understand me then maybe, just maybe I can get help. My therapist bought it and read it, too.

I cant tell you what it means to find something out about this illness. Our family has been dealing with this nightmare with our daughter for four years. Thank you for writing your book.

Thank you so much for being a light to those of us who are in darkness, and an understanding ear for those of us who live in fear of societys rejection and wrath simply because our only way of dealing with our issues is to see the scars or feel the pain.

You have no idea how many people you have helped already. You have inspired something inside me I never knew I had. Thank you for caring about a small population of misunderstood people. I am forever grateful.

I am a social worker at a state psychiatric hospital who has worked with a cutter and your book is not only clinically very informative it is also engaging, and I find reading it nourishing and validating. It gives me hope that more needs to and will be done in terms of awareness and treatment.

Having been in family practice for almost ten years, I have dealt with many peoplemainly young womenwho are cutters. This is the best explanation of the whole issue Ive read. Strongs book is extremely useful both for therapists and for other concerned people.

PENGUIN BOOKS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marilee Strong is an award-winning journalist who specializes in the coverage of psychological and social issues. Known for her groundbreaking 1993 magazine cover story on self-mutilation, she is also the author of the 2009 book Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives. The recipient of a Pulitzer Fellowship from Columbia University, she has written widely on such topics as war trauma, child abduction, hate groups, gang violence, and the psychological treatment of sex offenders.

Armando Favazza, M.D., is the author of Bodies Under Siege and is a member of the department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Missouri-Columbia Medical School.

A Bright

Red Scream

Self-Mutilation
and the Language of Pain

MARILEE STRONG

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,

a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 1998

Published in Penguin Books 1999

Published with a revised preface in Penguin Books 2009

25 27 29 30 28 26 24

Copyright Marilee Strong, 1998

Introduction copyright Armando Favazza, 1998

Preface Marilee Strong, 2009

All rights reserved

A portion of this work first appeared in San Francisco Focus magazine.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint

excerpts from the following copyrighted works:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. Copyright 1969 and renewed