Suicide and the self-harm continuum: phenomenological and biochemical evidence

The thrust of biological research in psychiatry has generally followed the classic approach which aims at identifying biochemical differences between individuals who make up one diagnostic group and either normal controls or patients from another diagnostic group (e.g. schizophrenia vs. normal controls or schizophrenia vs. depression). The focus of our research, and in more recent years, of others, has been one of identifying specific behaviors common to many diagnostic groups and biochemical events which correlate with them (e.g. suicide). In this report we review the phenomenological and biochemical evidence that suicide, self-mutilation and trichotillomania may represent points along a continuum of self-harm.