Journal of Psychology - JuniperPublishers Introduction Psychological and behavioral symptoms, such as self- injurious behavior (SIBs), can be the expression of an underlying disease entity, sometimes even previously unidentified. When possible, the best approach to self-injury for such individuals is to anticipate the possibilities of these complications long before they actually occur by preventing or ameliorating the disease entity itself. Many diseases of the central nervous system that have self-injury are the symptomatic expression of impaired common final pathways, pathways likely altered well before birth in most cases. The abnormal functions begins to show up as the individual's brain grows, connecting and pruning (or failing to prune) essential developmental pathways. Unfortunately, in the majority of these individuals, the detection of the precise medical mechanism of action in the central nervous system that causes the underlying disease entity has not...
