Rating: 
Summary: Not a good book for sufferers
Review: Although this book provided a lot of information about self injury, I felt that it was more geared towards doctors/therapists than to people who hurt themselves. I found it very technical and a little impersonal. It offered so many different possible explanation for self injury that all it actually ended up saying was that no one really knows why people deliberately hurt themselves. I also didn't like the way it referred to self injury as "self mutilation" throughout the book. It is too harsh a term, and not one that sufferers like to use or hear. Overall, the book gives much information about self injury, some of it very scientific, but it is not the best choice if you are a person who hurts yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good book for sufferers
Review: Although this book provided a lot of information about self injury, I felt that it was more geared towards doctors/therapists than to people who hurt themselves. I found it very technical and a little impersonal. It offered so many different possible explanation for self injury that all it actually ended up saying was that no one really knows why people deliberately hurt themselves. I also didn't like the way it referred to self injury as "self mutilation" throughout the book. It is too harsh a term, and not one that sufferers like to use or hear. Overall, the book gives much information about self injury, some of it very scientific, but it is not the best choice if you are a person who hurts yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: not quite the whole story
Review: as a piercer, and enthusiest of piercing and tattooing, i found the body modification section of this book judgemental and narrow minded. favazza does not diffrencate between personal decoration and self modification. decoration is not mutalation, and many, many tattooed and pierced people, including myself, do not consider it bad, or an effect of low self esteem or anything remotely resembling self abuse. i found this book biased and not informative at all, at least the body modification part, the rest, i cannot say, as i have never mutilated my body.
Rating:
Summary: not quite the whole story
Review: as a piercer, and enthusiest of piercing and tattooing, i found the body modification section of this book judgemental and narrow minded. favazza does not diffrencate between personal decoration and self modification. decoration is not mutalation, and many, many tattooed and pierced people, including myself, do not consider it bad, or an effect of low self esteem or anything remotely resembling self abuse. i found this book biased and not informative at all, at least the body modification part, the rest, i cannot say, as i have never mutilated my body.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent information on an often misunderstood topic
Review: Bodies Under Siege is the first book on self-injury that I've read, and I have to say that I am most impressed. After hearing so much about books that are critical or accusatory or simply wrong, I believe that Bodies Under Siege somehow manages to find a happy accommodation between technical explanation and useful information. It falls somewhere between an anthropology textbook and a self help/diagnostic manual, and the author takes a different and refreshing approach to this controversial subject by not focusing solely on self-injury as a symptom of a psychological disorder. Instead Favazza describes self-injurious practices from cultures all over the world, past and present, including ours. By considering the natives of New Guinea who cut off a finger as a way of mourning the death of a loved one, and modern teens with tattoos and multiple piercings, and a psychotic individual who blinded himself, Favazza clarifies the line between culturally sanctioned self-injury and its pathological counterpart. In the first two sections of the book, the author focuses on defining culturally sanctioned self-injury, and uses various exemplary cultural and clinical case studies to illustrate his points. Both of these sections are interesting and informative, especially if you like learning about lots of very different cultures. These chapters are careful to incorporate facts about pathological self injury, which become relevant information even though not directly related to the kind of self-injury that most people are likely to see. The last section deals with pathological self-injury, self-injury that is a symptom of other disorders. Favazza here introduces his theory that symptomatic self-injury can progress and eventually become a disorder in and of itself, a theory that has many valid aspects but is still not accepted by most of the psychological community. While the first parts of the book were interesting from an academic point of view, it was the last section that I as a self-injurer found most helpful. Favazza defines and discusses the surprisingly large number of different kinds of self-injury, the circumstances under which each is most likely to occur, and the various techniques that he uses to help people overcome this little-known problem. The entire book is very graphic and detailed, and therefore has the potential to be very triggering. Even so I enjoyed this book thoroughly and I look forward to reading more by this cultural psychiatrist.
Rating:
Summary: UGH
Review: BODY MODS ARE NOT MUTILATION. this author was very ignorant
Rating: 
Summary: hurting yourself
Review: i started cutting my self when i was only 4 years old and now at fourteen i have started aagain if you know a way to stop please email me @ darryg37@hotmail.com
Rating:
Summary: Armando has lost his mind
Review: I've met this guy a few times. Cat is stuck on him self. Maybe if he would take time to understand people instead of worrying about himself he would get it.
Rating: 
Summary: A first of its kind
Review: Many people look at this book to be designed solely for sufferers...it isn't. As it states, it discusses Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry. It uses case studies to illustrate this point. Now, it can be a very graphic book, and is not for the weak-stomached. I would say that unless you're interested in some of the stuff in it, skip the sections that don't apply to you. It's an extremely informative book. It is not meant to be a personal book, like A Bright Red Scream, Cutting, or Skin Game. It's more to explain why self-mutilators do what they do. If you want explanations, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A first of its kind
Review: Many people look at this book to be designed solely for sufferers...it isn't. As it states, it discusses Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry. It uses case studies to illustrate this point. Now, it can be a very graphic book, and is not for the weak-stomached. I would say that unless you're interested in some of the stuff in it, skip the sections that don't apply to you. It's an extremely informative book. It is not meant to be a personal book, like A Bright Red Scream, Cutting, or Skin Game. It's more to explain why self-mutilators do what they do. If you want explanations, read this book.
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