It cuts both ways: an analysis of the psychological discourse on self-injury from a linguistic point of view.

This article proposes an analysis of the phenomenon of self-injury through the prism of current linguistic theories. The author uses the clinical distinctions made by Roman Jakobson between metonymic and metaphoric aphasia to suggest that the psychological community and those who harm themselves are participating in separate "language games." While the clinical "language game" is characterized by the dominance of metaphor and a conception stressing the hierarchy between metaphor and metonymy, the "language game" of self-mutilators is dominated by metonymy. The author explores the clinical implications of understanding the language game of those who injure themselves as metonymic.