Replacement Skills Training for Deliberate Self-Harm

[Page 2854]Replacement skills training is one of the behavioral interventions for the treatment of deliberate self-harm. Self-harming behaviors are also referred to as self-injurious behaviors and include self-inflicted cutting, hitting, burning, biting, and excoriation of wounds. These behaviors, despite their own negative consequences, usually serve as coping strategies for emotional and interpersonal distress. Because of the potency of self-harm to reduce distress, addressing the behavior through restriction has proved ineffective. Replacement skills training provides adaptive substitutes for self-harming behaviors; therefore, it is important that replacement skills be as effective in reducing the distress as the targeted self-harm. There is little research that supports replacement skills training as an evidence-based practice for the clinical treatment of deliberate self-harm. However, anecdotally it has been found effective for ...