Accounting for self-harm: Holding the balance

Abstract

Contemporary Social services are characterised by the separation of services to adults and those to children and families. This has allowed the generic aspects of mental health practice to become obscured and increasingly leaves child care workers holding the balance between needs of children for protection and the imperative to deal with growing levels of parental distress. Using self-harm as an illustration, we begin to explore the complexities of this state of affairs. We question the assumptions underlying the received wisdom on risk assessment, which gloss over the socially meaningful nature of self-harm and underestimate the powerful injunctions which prevent parents, and mothers in particular, from being able to talk about the emotional burden of parenthood to workers who form part of the surveillance systems of the state.