Supporting the person diagnosed with a personality disorder who presents to the Emergency Department following intentional self-harm

About eighteen months ago I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book on Mental Health in Emergency Care. The chapter was to be named “Supporting the person diagnosed with a personality disorder who presents to the Emergency Department following intentional self-harm”.  

Pretty-much straight away I asked Enara Larcombe to co-produce/co-write the chapter with me. Co-production is in keeping with the “nothing about us without us” idea (which has gained a lot of buy-in from senior mental health nurses). My reasons for asking were:

• It’s good manners
• It would improve the contribution
• It would be difficult to write on the subject without including learnings I’ve acquired when working with Enara

As it turns out, in the process of collaboration Enara became the lead author of the chapter. Enara did the lion’s share of the literature search, and contributed some fantastic lived-experience insights. Enara certainly earned lead authorship. After lots of to-ing and fro-ing between us, Enara and I proudly sent off our chapter about a year ago.

The key points of the chapter are:

• Borderline personality disorder is often misunderstood, and many people who have been given this diagnosis feel that it has stigmatised their care in the hospital and health system. 
• Intentional self-harm is a complex phenomenon; it does not always indicate a wish to die. 
• Nurses and other emergency care professionals are well placed to provide both physical and mental health care to the person who presents following intentional self-harm. 

 The learning outcomes we hope the chapter will assist with are:

• Improve your understanding of the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and what this means for the person. 
• Articulate the differences and similarities between a suicide attempt and non-suicidal self-harm. 
• Describe examples of stigma that the person who self-harms experiences and consider how this might impact on practice. 
• Identify nursing interventions and practices that are helpful to the person who self-harms.   
• Describe the communication and interpersonal skills that can be deployed to support the person who intentionally self-harms/who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. 

So What?

Today I learned that the book with our chapter is available for pre-purchase.

Shit is getting real homies.

• 

  _{Mental Health in Emergency Care
  https://www.elsevierhealth.com.au/mental-health-in-emergency-care-9780729544214.html}

• 

From the info available on the website, it looks like our chapter has been renamed from “Supporting the person diagnosed with a personality disorder who presents to the Emergency Department following intentional self-harm” to “Emergency Department: Person with personality disorder presenting with deliberate self-harm”.

I prefer the kinder, more respectful “Supporting the person diagnosed with..” bit, but anyway…

Anyway, I’m pleased-as-punch to be a co-author of a chapter in a book. Not perfoming at quite the same level as Tim Winton or JK Rowling, but for me it’s still a big deal.

Chapter Reference

it’s a pain-in-the-arse citing chapters in reference lists, so in the interests of encouraging you to read and cite the chapter, let’s keep it copy-and-paste easy:

APA
Larcombe, E. & McNamara, P. (2022) Emergency Department: Person with personality disorder presenting with deliberate self-harm. In P. Marks (Ed), Mental Health in Emergency Care, (pp. 131-143), Elsevier

Harvard
Larcombe, E & McNamara, P 2022, ‘Emergency Department: Person with personality disorder presenting with deliberate self-harm’, in P. Marks (ed), Mental Health in Emergency Care, Elsevier (pp. 131-143)

MLA
Larcombe, Enara & McNamara, Paul. “Emergency Department: Person with personality disorder presenting with deliberate self-harm.” Mental Health in Emergency Care, edited by Peta Marks, Elsevier, 2022, pp. 131-143

Q & A

Q: Mental Health in Emergency Care will be on the bookshelves in about three months. Is it the perfect Christmas gift?
A: Yes. Yes it is the perfect Christmas gift. 🙂

Q: How much money do you make for each copy sold?
A: Zero dollars and no cents. 😦

Q: Huh?
A: Academic publishing puts a value on everything except the content creators. ikr

Q: Why skite in August about a book that is not available until November?
A: Because I intend to mothball this website in September. It’s now or never.

Q: Why skite about it all?
A: I was a scrape-through-average student at school. That was a LONG time ago, but still… being published suprises and delights me.

Q: So, do you admit that you’re just bragging?
A: I admit that I don’t hide my light under a bushel. I’ve written about this before [see A Nurse’s Digital Identity]. Get on board. Don’t be mean.

Q: Where do I find out more about the book?
A: www.elsevierhealth.com.au/mental-health-in-emergency-care-9780729544214.html

End Notes

Many thanks to Peta Marks for inviting the chapter contribution; huge thanks to Enara Larcombe for co-producing it.

As always, your feedback is welcome via the comments section below.

Paul McNamara, 22 August 2022

Short URL meta4RN.com/chapter