The Scarred Soul  Understanding and ending self harm.  The
Relationship Between Self-Injury and Sexual Orientation  Does
sexual orientation relate to self-injury?   Benjamin Disraeli
Working in the field of self-injury is like scuba diving without
a mask.  You get glimpses of what might be under the surface,
but it’s difficult to know if what you’re seeing is real.  There
is little quality research within the field of self-injury. 
When I first began studying this area more than fifteen years
ago, there were less than a thousand articles, books, and
dissertations in total, and many of these centered on self-
mutilation in those with developmental or neurological issues. 
Today, there are roughly two thousand journal articles with
self-injury as its focus.  As a comparison, a recent search of
the literature on schizophrenia lists over seventy thousand
journal articles.    Several years ago I was asked an excellent
question about the relationship between self-injury and sexual
orientation.  At that time, there