Tuesday was a new experience for me as a LifeSIGNS trainer – instead of talking to the usual doctors, nurses or other healthcare workers, I was talking to helpline listeners of a service provided to the armed forces, courtesy of SSAFA. I had never visited an army barracks before, or indeed been in any “army” part of the country so as we were passing signs on the way from the station that read “Tanks Crossing” and “Danger to Public: Unexploded Bombs” at the entrance to fields, I began to have a certain feeling of not being in Kansas anymore!

Still I was surprised when I got to thinking about it that although this training was taking place in a very different location to what we are used to – there was a chap in uniform on the gate holding a gun – what I had to say didn’t differ very much from what I would say anywhere. I’m sure that the military way of life is very different from that of civilians but yet the factors that contribute to the urge to self-injure are similar across the board, in particular a high level of stress, but also perhaps an inability to express feelings or fears.

I conducted two sessions in the course of the afternoon with two lots of listeners. All had received at least one call in the past related to self-injury but no one really knew that much about it and we managed to get a good discussion going about how the bigger problem is the emotional distress. At the end of the session I received a lot of positive feedback from them, that the talk had been very enlightening and thought provoking.

I have recently also trained a group of doctors – including consultants! – and taken part in a Expert Panel at a school parents’ evening. Every time people seem to be surprised by what we are saying, in that it differs so much from what they have heard in the papers and I try to caution them against believing everything they read about self-injury – while greater awareness is good, I believe that generally certain aspects are overemphasised in the media while others are totally ignored. One clear example of this is the surprise when I talk about self-injury starting later on in life.

We clearly don’t have the answers in what the best treatment is for people struggling with self-injury, or what the magic words might be on the end of a helpline. I consider the greatest benefit of our training to be the understanding that comes with education, and the way that talking about personal experiences helps people to remember things better than if they are just fed statements and theories.