Self-harm phenomena constitute a complex issue, considering a wide range of behaviors that can be related to self-inflicted damage towards one s body, with greater or lesser severity. The diversity of self-aggression practices implies a research heterogeneity on the matter, with different classifications and conceptualizations. Our objective is to analyze self-harm as superficial skin cuts and the ensuing relief sensation experimented by individuals under great psychic pain, without any suicidal intention. This dissertation intends to promote some reflections on self-injurious practices as a possible resource for the individual to experience vivacity, that is, the feeling of being alive while facing the excess of a psychic suffering that cannot be put into words. In this regard, we will explore the importance of the body record as a structuring factor of the psyche, using some notes on the body concept in Freud s work. We will also resort, in the theory of post-Freudian authors, to the concept of body image, which would be an important part in the constitution of the Self, contributing to the formation of a body unity and a feeling of self. The clinical condition of self-mutilation seems to point, however, to an unrepresented body, crossed by instinctual excess, which prioritizes sensoriality to present and update itself, to the detriment of a supposedly unified body image. We will seek, then, in Freud s work, references about the limitations of the language representational field, as well as the central role that sensations from the perceptive system can assume in the psychic constitution. Finally, we will draw a parallel between the sensory vividness present in the dream work and the sensory strength verified in the act of scarification, and how both can be fundamental in the psychic organization of the experimented intensities.