Cutting and other forms of self-injury are often cries for help, pleas for someone to notice that the pain is too much to bear. As Plante discusses here, the threat of suicide must always be carefully evaluated, although the majority of cutters are not in fact suicidal. Instead, cutting represents a rapidly spreading method for teens hoping to ease emotional pain and suffering. Bleeding from self-inflicted wounds not only helps to numb the cutter and vent despair, it can also be a dramatic means of communicating, controlling, and asking for help from others. Plante describes the frightening developmental tasks teenagers and young adults face, and how the central challenges of the three Is (Independence, Intimacy, and Identity) compel them to cope through self-destructive acts. Readers will come to a better understanding of these struggling teenagers and the dramatic methods they employ to ease and overcome their internal pain through a desperate need to cut and self-injure.

"The book contains information that may be extremely valuable to parents. The author addresses directly the issue that parents may feel responsibility or guilt for their child's DSH. This is accomplished through the provision of succinct quotations from both teenagers and parents. This helps parents realize they are not alone in these circumstances, normalizes their reactions, and provides hope for the future .... Plante's Bleeding to Ease the Pain provides clinicians and nonclinicians important information to begin advancement in this area....[a] novel approach to understanding and treating adolescents by adopting a developmental approach that emphasizes their relationship with their parents." - PsycCRITIQUES

"There is a growing epidemic of young people resorting to cutting themselves in order to cope with the pain and turmoil of life changes, says Plante. She explores the reasons behind such painful and damaging acts in adolescents, and offers both a philosophy and a methodology for effective intervention. Her topics include teenagers most at risk, developmental challenges, professional treatment, neurochemistry, how parents can help, responsibilities of the adolescent in treatment, and de-pathologizing the problem." - Scitech Book News

"Plante does a comprehensive job of explaining the many variables and factors to consider when assessing and intervening with adolescents who self-injure. She frames self-injurious behavior within the complex developmental conflict of adolescence, a time when the need for independence and connection are most salient. Plante provides case studies and practical suggestions that are useful for parents and mental health providers on how to intervene and provide support.... Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates, first-year graduate students, practitioners, and parents of adolescents." - CHOICE

"It is rare to encounter a work on an important topic that would be of interest to clinicians, patients and their families, and to the general public. Books aimed at the latter often tend to sensationalize their subject matter, and books aimed at patients and their families tend to be dumbed down to an almost embarrassing extent, rendering them useless to the clinician. But Plante achieves this seemingly impossible balance in Bleeding to Ease the Pain and has produced a work that I would recommend strongly to colleagues, patients, and anyone concerned about the lives of today's adolescents ....A concise, excellent introduction to adolescent cutting from a clinician's perspective. Valuable for clinicians, patients, parents, and the interested general reader." - Metapsychology Online