by Christina Perron Abstract: Non-suicidal self-injury is thought of as a disordered emotional coping mechanism. This phenomenon is gaining increasing attention in the psychiatric and lay literature as it often is a harbinger of significant ongoing life stressors, a marker of adverse childhood experiences, and/or a manifestation of psychiatric disease. Dermatologists investigate and treat diseases of the skin and are therefore often privy to a patient’s closely guarded stigmata of self-harm. A fourth-year medical student questioned how best to care for this patient population in the outpatient dermatology clinic. A review of the current dermatologic literature proved largely silent on this subject. A dermatology clinic visit may represent an ideal, … Continue reading →