Self‐mutilation: culture, contexts and nursing responses

• Few papers address the issue of deliberate self‐mutilation other than from clinical perspectives. • This paper advocates a user‐perspective and discusses some of the issues which might attend such a change. • The occurrence of self‐mutilation is placed within a cultural framework so as to enlarge the debate beyond the confines of medical/nursing responses. • It is suggested that nurses abrogate their attachment to such responses and embrace more collaborative approaches to care. • In particular, nurses are asked to review their (moral) responses to self‐mutilation, an activity which, too often, has been responded to with scorn and derision.