Paul, a service user with learning disabilities in a medium-secure unit, was asked if he would describe his experiences of self-injury in an attempt to foster better understanding among nurses. Helen Duperouzel and Paul Moores describe the question-and-answer sessions that resulted

Nurses’ attitudes towards people who self-injure can be negative and often interfere with therapeutic relationships with service users. Prevention, with the aim of stopping self-injury, remains the goal of many nursing interventions and some nurses still believe that the function of self-injury is to seek attention from staff. These views are often fuelled by a lack of understanding and when providing any staff training these negative attitudes need to be addressed (Duperouzel and Fish 2007).