A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain is a 1998 non-fiction psychology book written by American journalist Marilee Strong about self-harm.

Marilee Strong was an American journalist who had spent several weeks in Mozambique on a Pulitzer Fellowship reporting on the psychological trauma experienced by children as a result of the civil war.

[2] In 1993, she wrote an article for San Francisco Focus entitled "A Bright Red Scream", part of a surge in media interest in the topic in the years following the publication of Favazza's book.

[1][4] She also interviewed neuroscientists, psychologists and psychiatrists, including Favazza, a recognised expert on self-harm, and Bessel van der Kolk, a specialist in posttraumatic stress disorder.

[7] Strong set out to find the meaning behind this intentional self-harm, exploring related fields of research like child abuse, addiction and posttraumatic stress disorder.