A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain

Marilee Strong

It amazes me how psychologists can take a series of seemingly unrelated symptoms, come up with a hypothesis, and be dead-on right. For the past twenty years, they've been doing just that with the small, but increasing, segment of the populace who injure themselves through bloodletting, beating their heads against walls, breaking bones, and other such behaviors. Strong, a journalist, boils all the research down and combines it with "thousands" (as she says in the preface) of interviews with the types of people profiled in the research. The end result is a powerful book about childhood trauma and its relation to self-destructive behavior. A very important piece of work that will go unread, or not understood, by those who most need it-- neglectful and abusive parents.