Table of Contents

Preface to the Third Edition
Part I: Mutilative Beliefs, Religion, Eating, and Ethology
1. Mutilative Beliefs, Attitudes, Practices, and Images
2. Self-mutilation in Myths of Creation, Shamanism, and Religion
3. Self-injury and Eating Disorders
4. Animals and Automutilation
Part II: Mutilation and Self-Injury of Body Parts: Cultural and Clinical Cases
5. The Head and Its Parts
6. The Limbs
7. The Skin
8. The Genitals
Part III: Insight and Treatment
9. Understanding Self-injury
10. The Assessment, Psychology, and Biology of Self-injury
11. Treatment
12. Personal Reflections
Epilogue: Body Play: My Journey, Fakir Musafar
References
Index

About the Author

Armando Favazza, M.D., is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is a fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Psychiatrists and is a co-founder of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture.

Reviews

The book is very well written and extremely informative, and Favazza has produced a refreshingly honest and objective account of self-harming behaviour... There is much to be learned from this book and, for clinicians or academics working with people who self-harm, it is an invaluable resource. British Journal of Psychiatry Bodies Under Siege is an excellent book dealing with self-mutilation in depth and breadth. It is a clinical volume that should be of use to all in the mental health field. The book is also an anthropological contribution to the understanding of what it means to be human. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease Bodies under Siege is an excellent book dealing with self-mutilation in depth and breadth. It is a clinical volume that should be of use to all in the mental health field. The book is also an anthropological contribution to the understanding of what it means to be human... I believe that this book will remain a classic in the psychiatric literature, and I recommend it to a wide audience. -- Arthur Freeman, MD Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease