It’s always a pleasure to see Dr. Neil and help out in his classes at the (not so) nearby teaching hospital. Last month I spoke to a class of qualified doctors, today I spoke to a lively class of medical doctors who, I think, were in their psychiatry module of their ongoing education and training.

LifeSIGNS is currently swamped with requests for training, where we give almost a 2 hour seminar to interested organisations around the country, but for Dr. Neil, I just speak for 40 minutes about why self-injury works for some people, how it develops as a coping mechanism and how, ultimately, it’s up to the person to make the choice to move away from self-injury, with the support of the NHS if possible. I drop in many a detail of my own reliance on self-injury by way of example.

It’s not always easy to talk so personally about self-injury, maybe sometimes I allow the ‘LifeSIGNS brand’ to give me some distance from my own history of self-injury, but I feel safe talking to friendly looking nicely dressed strangers from the little stage the lecture room has, and I trust Dr. Neil implicitly, as he’s been looking into ‘parasuicide’ and self-harm / self-injurious behaviour for many years; and several years ago he helped me with my anxiety, offering me some crisis cognitive counselling, that directly helped me with decision making anxiety.

Listening to Dr. Neil instruct his class in the proper care pathways, it’s an incredible feeling to hear him say that for any presentment of self-injury, they are to suggest the LifeSIGNS website as part of the help they offer people.

I look forward to his next class in early March.

We are swamped with training requests right now, but we’re ever so proud that organisations around the UK trust us to deliver insightful training about self-injury, with out unique perspective, considering that LifeSIGNS has been run since 2002 by people with experience of self-injury.

We hope to offer even more training around the country in the summer of 08, so please do request a Training Brochure from me, (as always, please note that we cannot reply to hotmail / msn addresses, it just doesn’t work).

Wedge