Citation

Kahan J, Pattison EM. Suicide Life Threat. Behav. 1984; 14(1): 17-35.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, American Association of Suicidology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

6506129

Abstract

Self-destructive behavior is a major clinical problem in psychiatry. A review of the literature reveals the existence of enough clinical data to identify a diagnostic entity, "The Deliberate Self-Harm Syndrome" (DSH). The authors present a diagnostic formulation of the DSH syndrome (in the DSM-III format) which consists of four essential clinical features, a group of associated features, clinical features, a group of associated features, a clinical course of typical onset in late adolescence, with multiple recurrent episodes, with multiple methods of low lethality physical self-injury, extending over many years. On the basis of relatively exclusive association of clinical signs and symptoms a heuristic clinical entity is proposed.