Is self-scratch a self-harm?

Hi, my sister is having a problem now and she think that it might be a symptom of self-harm. She said that she tends to scratch or pinch herself at night before her sleep. Sometimes she'll wake up in the night and starts to scratch herself on her arms and sometimes her legs. However, she said that the scratch is not very serious and didn't leave any injury on her skin. Few years back, she even tried to bang her head to the wall but that only happen once. Besides, she also tried to cut herself on her wrist with a scissors, but she didn't do it. She just placed the scissors on her wrist, but after thinking for a moment, she gave up without hurting herself with the scissors. This also happened few years back.

She started to have this problem when she face difficulties with her studies. She always tried her best to study but still failed to pass her exam. Parents scolded for her bad results too. Besides, her brother (me) always get better result than her. So she felt the pressure from parents and her brother. Sometimes she'll scratch herself on her leg when she failed to get the correct answer for her homework after many trials. She'll feel better after scratching herself.

To stop herself from scratching or pinching herself, she'll press on her hands with her body. So her hands cannot move.

She said that this unusual behaviour started to reduce and did not happen so often anymore. She told me about this last week and I said that it is better to see a professional like a counsellor or psychiatrist, but she didn't want to.

I would like to know that is this self-harm? What can I do to help her?

[Blueacara]

I myself was a scratcher and would do the same thing as your sister and take a knife to my wrist then think nah. By scratching for me was a greater release it also feels good to scratch, I never made a mess of my wrist but made it red sometime a little blood but not much, your sister seems frustrated and sense it's more of a habit, I kinda grew out of it but sounds silly that I use to do sit-ups until my tummy hurt so badly I got the same sense of relese

[AlexCTS]

What caused you to hurt yourself? Did you ever try to seek help from any of the counsellor or psychiatrist? I'm just worrying that her behaviour might get more and more serious.