About SII
The Self-Injury Institute (formerly known as Kahn Institute for Self-Injury) was launched in the summer of 2013 in the heart of Los Angeles, California. It is the brainchild of self-injury expert, Angela Caldwell, a marriage and family therapist who has been working with this population for the past decade. It is devoted to the study and treatment of self-injury and champions a family systems approach to psychotherapy.
The base philosophy underlying all branches of the institute is essentially an answer to the problem of widespread treatment failures with self-injurers. For far too long, the models and approaches typically used with this group have left self-injurers and their loved ones with little, if any, real results. Self-injurers are often misunderstood as suicidal or misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. Treatment plans designed for that type of suffering are then applied to self-injurers who do not have those problems, and as you may guess, treatment typically fails.
What is forgotten by these failing treatments is the family. Plain and simple. The cycle usually goes something like this: There is something going wrong and/or unaddressed in a family. Some unspoken family rule states that no one can talk about it. One member can’t stand it and gets all filled up with intense emotion. Because the family has tacitly agreed not to express any emotion related to this, the only place left to “vent” the emotion is that person’s own body.
At SII, we base our treatment, research, and training on this understanding. We use an approach designed by Angela Caldwell that includes the family environment as part of what needs to change. We do not see self-injury as the problem, but rather as the only logical venting of a completely separate family problem. Hence, we work with the families of the self-injurer to help them see what they might be missing and what might need fixing. Families that have “graduated” from this kind of therapy are amazed at what kind of results can be achieved just from being willing, open, and honest with one another in the safety of a therapist’s office. Our clients feel heard and understood, better able to handle problems with new tools, and more optimistic about the future.
Our Staff
Angela Caldwell
Founder and Executive Director
Angela Caldwell, founder and executive director of SII, is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, California (#45163). Angela has been working with the self-injury population since her early days as a trainee, and now devotes most of her professional energy toward treating these individuals and families, as well as training other therapists who work with self-injury. She has given lectures on her approach to large audiences at national conferences as well as small groups at public libraries. Angela is a graduate of the University of Southern California and Pepperdine University, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Clinical Psychology. She serves on the Board of Directors of AAMFT-CA, and is adjunct faculty at Antioch University Los Angeles and California State University Northridge.
To set up a consultation with Angela, send an email to angela@selfinjuryinstitute.com.
Jessica Tang
Clinical Director
Jessica Tang is a licensed marriage and family therapist (#99814) who has extensive experience with young children and families, which includes working in early childhood education as a toddler and preschool teacher, in special education as a behavioral interventionist and supervisor, and in early intervention as a child development specialist and program coordinator. She began her clinical training at Child Development Institute in Woodland Hills, California by providing primarily child mental health and parent training as well as individual, couple, and family therapy using humanistic, relationship-based methods. Jessica earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and her Master of Science in Counseling with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy at California State University, Northridge. Jessica became a Fellow of SII in October 2015.
Jessica is responsible for all intakes at SII. To set up an intake appointment, contact her at jessica@selfinjuryinstitute.com.
Emma Jaegle
Outreach Coordinator
Eric Carlson
Therapist
Eric Carlson is a licensed marriage and family therapist (#96974) who graduated with a Masters in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica in 2012 and a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, Los Angeles in 2013. Eric has wide-ranging experience working with children and their families, including with physically and developmentally disabled children in New York when he was in high school and college, as an adult in Los Angeles coaching boys soccer and basketball in South Central, working at Public Counsel’s Children’s Rights Project counseling children in guardianship and adoption proceedings, and serving on the original Board of Directors of a start-up, non profit charter school for underprivileged youth. Eric became a Fellow of SII in 2014.