Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> <http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/05/injury>
>
> Self-Injury Epidemic
What such "epidemics" usually mean is that someone (reporter, scholar) has decided to give publicity to something that has existed for a long time. And there is no way, so far as I know, to compare relative rates of self-injury now and (say) 50 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if the rate is lower rather than higher now. For a beautiful instance of this kind of thing, see Lincoln Steffens report in his Autobiography of how as a young reporter he created a crime wave, then stopped it at the orders of Theordore Roosevelt, then Police Commissioner of NYC.
Carrol