View videos from fall BCTR talks

Videos from our fall events are now online, in case you missed them or want to revisit the events. Videos are embedded below (when possible) and all are permanently archived in our media library.

2015 Iscol Lecture:
Workforce of the Future

October 7, 2015
Reshma Saujani, Founder and CEO, Girls Who Code

2015 Bronfenbrenner Lecture:
The Obama Evidence-Based Revolution: Will It Last?

September 16, 2015
Ron Haskins, Center on Children and Families; Budgeting for National Priorities; Economic Studies, Brookings Institution

View video

Talks at Twelve: Janis Whitlock

Helping Parents Help Their Teens: Lessons Learned about Parent Stress and Support from Research on Self-injury and Families
Thursday, November 12, 2015

Janis Whitlock
BCTR, Cornell University

Addressing scars as lingering reminders of the pain of self-injury

Janis Whitlock

Even after doing the emotional work to heal from self-injury, scars can remain as a reminder of a painful time for many who self-injure. Tattooing has emerged as a potentially helpful tool for people with a history of self injury to cover, and reinterpret, their scars.

Janis Whitlock, director of the BCTR's Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, is quoted in a Vice.com post about coping with self-injury scars. There is a biochemical payoff to self harm, notes Whitlock, "You are basically relying on your body's own chemical-producing capacity to generate a set of drugs that change your consciousness."

Whitlock also responded to the idea of warning youth about the visibility and stigma of future scarring as a deterrent to self-injurious behavior. She noted that, due to the developmental stage of the teenage brain, it is nearly impossible for youth to absorb that kind of message about the future when they're flooded with emotion.

How tattoos can ease the emotional pain of self-harm scars - Vice

Schools learning to address rising student self-injury

"Schools around the country have begun offering new classes and mental-health programs to help stem a sharp rise in the number of adolescents found to be engaging in self injury, especially cutting," begins a recent Wall Street Journal article. The piece goes on to outline the use of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) in schools across the country to offer kids other tools to deal with overwhelming emotions.

Janis Whitlock

Janis Whitlock, director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, was a resource for the "Teen Cutting: Myths & Facts" sidebar on the article:

Myth: Cutting is a kind of suicide attempt.
Fact: Cutting usually isn’t intended to be life-ending. It is a coping mechanism used by young people who are stressed, overwhelmed or in emotional pain. It helps them manage their emotions and feel temporary relief.

Myth: Self-injury is something girls do, not boys.
Fact: Therapists and school officials often see more self-injuring girls than boys, but it may be that girls are more willing to ask for help. In many research samples of self-injuring people, there is a small, or no, difference in the proportion of males versus females. Girls are more likely to cut; boys are more likely to hit or burn.

Myth: Self-harm is a problem among teens but not younger children.
Fact: In a sample of 665 youth surveyed for a 2012 paper in Pediatrics, 7.6% of third graders, 4% of sixth graders, and 12.7% of ninth graders reported engaging in non-suicidal self-injury. Self-harming behaviors included cutting, hitting and scratching.

Myth: Self-injury is a problem among social misfits and struggling students.
Fact: People who self-harm include excellent students and those who struggle; youth who have a hard time fitting in, as well as leaders with a wide circle of friends; and those from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Myth: People who cut are looking for attention.
Fact: Most people who do it say cutting, while painful, makes them feel relief temporarily. Young people often do it secretly: In one study, nearly a quarter of adolescents who reported self-injuring said they were sure nobody knew or suspected. Some say the physical pain distracts them from emotional pain, or that it makes them feel more alive.

Schools face the teen cutting problem - Wall Street Journal

CRPSIR cited in NPR story on self-injury

In his late teens David Fitzpatrick began to cut himself with razor blades. He was not intending to commit suicide, but was using self-injury as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions. This type of is self-wounding is called Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), which the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery (CRPSIR) defines as the deliberate, self-inflicted destruction of body tissue resulting in immediate damage, without suicidal intent, and for purposes not culturally sanctioned.

David told his story to local NPR station WNPR in Connecticut, describing his shame and confusion around NSSI,

For me, it was just a growing depression, and shame, and self-rage, and loathing...I got so overwhelmed. I felt like I can’t tell anyone about this, because it’s so bizarre.

The piece references information from the CRPSIR web site, an excellent source of information on NSSI, including resources for those who self-injure, parents and caregivers, friends, therapists, and other professionals who serve youth.

Self-injury and mental illness: A story of recovery - WNPR

Whitlock quoted on self-injury in US News & World Report

Misconceptions and misinformation about self-injury can keep sufferers from getting care and effect how they are treated by others. A recent US News & World Report article addresses some common myths about self-injury, including that self-injurers are suicidal, that self-injury is uncommon, and that the behavior is untreatable.

Janis Whitlock, director of the BCTR's Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, was quoted in the section dispelling the misconception about self-injurers necessarily being suicidal:

If someone becomes suicidal, then the act of having engaged in self-injury does psychologically prepare them to damage their body. That piece, for somebody who's never hurt their body before, is not easy. We have a lot of inner safeguards, psychologically, from taking our own lives. Somebody who really wants to commit suicide is going to have to overcome that. And somebody with self-injury has already practiced hurting themselves that way.

The article includes nine myths about self-injury in all.

Myths and facts about self-injury - US News & World Report

Whitlock and CRPSIR featured in documentary and on Today.com

Janis Whitlock and filmmaker Monica Zinn.
photo courtesy of Monica Zinn

"Every single human being suffers and every human being finds a way to handle that," Dr. Janis Whitlock notes in the documentary film, Self Inflicted. Whitlock, director of the BCTR's Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery (CRPSIR), is interviewed in the film, which also features youth who self-injure and other experts in the field. Self Inflicted will be released in 2015.

CRPSIR's work is referenced in a post on Today.com on the ways that teens deal with anxiety. The post and accompanying video outline the stressors teens face and the ways they're amplified by social media. Some teens acknowledge that self-injury can become an option they turn to in order to handle stress. A list from CRPSIR of warning signs that a child may be self-injuring is included in the post.

Self Inflicted trailer

Generation stress? How anxiety rules the secret life of teens - Today.com

Talks at Twelve: Janis Whitlock, Thursday, November 12, 2015

Helping Parents Help Their Teens: Lessons Learned about Parent Stress and Support from Research on Self-injury and Families
Janis Whitlock, Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, BCTR

Thursday, November 12, 2015
12:00PM-1:00PM
Beebe Hall, 2nd floor conference room

Contemporary parents face unparalleled challenges in helping teens (and themselves) navigate an increasingly complex world. This is particularly true for parents of teens struggling with complex mental health issues such as self-injury. The Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery program has been increasingly devoted to exploring and understanding the parent experience of youth who self-injure or who struggle with similar emotion regulation challenges. In her talk, Dr. Whitlock will share and summarize findings to date and will highlight emerging lessons learned for helping parents help their youth.

Janis Whitlock is a Research Scientist in the BCTR. She is the founder and director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery. Janis received her doctorate in 2003 from the College of Human Ecology’s Department of Human Development at Cornell University, a master’s degree in public health from UNC Chapel Hill (1994), and her BA from UC Berkeley (1988). Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she spent over a decade working in development and administration of front line services for adolescents and women related to sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and social and emotional development. She is dedicated to linking science with on-the-ground efforts to support and enhance the lives of youth and their families in the areas of adolescent and young adult social and emotional health and wellbeing.

This talk is open to all. Lunch will be served. Metered parking is available in the Plantations lot across the road from Beebe Hall. No registration or RSVP required except fo groups of 5 or more. We ask that larger groups email Patty at pmt6@cornell.edu letting us know of your plans to attend so that we can order enough lunch.

Self-injury information available online, but rarely accurate

Although keywords related to self-injury were searched online over 40 million times in the past year, the majority of the pages returned contain misinformation on the subject. A recent article in JAMA Pediatrics by University of Guelph researchers examined the accuracy of information contained in the first page of Google search results for each of 92 keywords related to self-injury. The top hits all contained some form of myth or misinformation. The article suggested alternate, reliable, sources of information on the subject, including the BCTR's Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery (CRPSIR).

Janis Whitlock

Dr. Janis Whitlock, CRPSIR director, was quoted in a Reuters piece on the findings:

My take away is that it's good that awareness is starting to grow. Of course, with the proliferation of information there is going to be the proliferation of things that aren't quite true. That seems to be the nature of the web. There is nothing you can't find. We all have to be educated searchers.

Self injury information available online, but rarely accurate - Reuters

Online forums a ‘mixed bag’ for depressed youth

A recent article by Reuters looked at the effect using online forums and resources has on depressed and self-harming young people. Dr. Janis Whitlock, director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, explains that the internet can provide both help and harm.

It's a mixed bag ...  There are some real assets, there are some real benefits to being able to access information and other people that may be supportive on the web. And also there are some real risks ...

Whitlock goes onto explain the risks and what parents can do check in with their children's experiences online.

Online forums a 'mixed bag' for depressed youth - Reuters Health