The pathology of finding yourself through self harming.

An emblematic figure of this subject in search of itself is the so-called 'cutter' - a widespread pathological phenomenon in the USA and elsewhere. There are an estimated two million of these ‘cutters’, mostly women, but also men, who cut themselves with razors or other sharp implements. Why? Apparently it has nothing to do with masochism or suicide. It's simply that these ‘cutters’ don't feel real as persons and for them it's only through this pain in the process of cutting (when you feel warm blood) that you feel reconnected again. This dramatic performance of self-harming, is a somewhat ghoulish example of the modern day quest for the finding of self, or presence.⁷ The cause of such phenomena may be that we live in a world which could be argued is in a state of transition from an onto-epistemological (knowledge based) tradition that is losing currency and a value theoretical (commodity based) tradition that is just beginning. Although, on the face of it, people are adjusting to rapid change, as just illustrated this is not always the case.