Researches that focus their careers around exploring the act of self-injury have discovered that animals, just like humans, experience extreme disruptions in parental care early in life. Phycologist Harry Harlow and his wife, Margaret, found that when a baby laboratory monkey is separated from it's mother during the first year of it's life, it becomes excessively fearful and engaged in self-mulitizating acts. Such acts were biting themselves, head banging, slapping themselves in the face, and even trying to chew off a limb. Like many self-harmers, the lab monkeys also engaged in repetitive behaviors to calm themselves when no one else was around to help them. They huddle in corners, rock back and forth, and even hug themselves.
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