By SARAH DOOLITTLE, Four Points News

Dr. Green is a licensed professional therapist working in the Four Points community. As part of her work she treats a number of patients who engage in cutting, known in the medical and psychological professions as non-suicidal self-injury or self-mutilation.

Very little data exists about the number of people engaging in self-injury. Due to the private nature of cutting and the injuries sustained, which are in most cases non-life threatening and therefore don’t require medical care, there are no medical records to study for statistical purposes. It is known that self-injury affects more females, but males also cut. And it is more common in adolescents. Anecdotal evidence among mental health professionals, parents and students also suggests that cutting is happening in Four Points.

What is non-suicidal self-injury?
Dr. Green explains that, as the name suggests, cutting is, “not to kill themselves. It’s not suicidal. But it’s an injury… It’s a way to relieve tension.” Objects used for self-injury are typically very sharp: for example, a razor blade, hair cutting scissors or a knife.

While hurting one’s self to relieve stress seems counterintuitive, the body’s biochemical response to an injury, even one that is self-inflicted, does provide relief. “The purpose of it is (to release) that cascade of neurotransmitters, which give the feeling of being in control again.”

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Restore Cryotherapy opened its third Austin-area store at the Hill Country Galleria on June 13. Steiner Ranch resident Steve Welch, second from left, and business partner Jim Donnelly, holding the ribbon, and their families and Restore team members celebrated the opening of the Bee Cave store.

By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

Steiner Ranch entrepreneur Steve Welch is hoping to bring cryotherapy treatment to a more mainstream market with the opening of Restore Cryotherapy at the Hill Country Galleria on June 13.

“We really wanted something close to home that not only we could use but the community would benefit from,” Welch said.

The new store is the sixth location to open since Welch and his co-founder Jim Donnelly opened the first two locations in 2015. Restore Cryotherapy has two other Austin-area stores, one at Arbor Trails and the other in Round Rock.

During a cryotherapy session, a person spends up to 3 minutes in a chamber that is cooled with liquid nitrogen to a temperature of around -220° to -240° F. As the body is exposed to the cold, it reacts by undergoing vasoconstriction and centralizing blood around key internal organs. Welch said the easiest way to think about cryotherapy is as an alternative to cold water immersion or ice packs.

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Brothers Ted and Doug Beck are the owners of Bevenco, Inc., the business their father started in the 1980s. The Steiner Ranch residents are self-employed and are part of 10 percent of the local population who also work from home offices.

By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

Nationwide, 10 percent of the country’s 146 million workers are self-employed, according to Census data.

That percentage holds true in western Travis County, where 10.3 percent of residents say they are self-employed. Locally, many self-employed residents say they choose to work from home because of lower costs, more flexibility and convenience.

Steiner Ranch resident Richard Piotrowski is the co-founder of LogZilla Corporation, a software start-up company that has created a network event management application to help keep networks running smoothly.

Richard Piotrowski

The company operates virtually, with Piotrowski and the other three co-founders located in different U.S. cities. The company employs 12 others who are located throughout the U.S. and Europe. They communicate using an online collaboration program called Slack.

Self-employed Americans and the workers they hired accounted for 44 million jobs in 2014, or 30 percent of the national workforce, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data the U.S. Census Bureau.

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