Talking purely from my own experience and my feelings about it.. Is it betraying someones trust? Yes.
I don't care how worried you are about me (I use 'you' and 'me' generally) If I came to you and spoke to you about something so private it's always in confidence. It doesn't matter if you think you're helping, if you force someone to stop before they are ready to stop you could be doing more harm than good.
There's only been two instances when someone has tried to help me by telling someone who could potentially help, one of the times was a teacher, and obviously I don't blame them, it's their job. The other time was one of my closest friends. I told her, she's one of the two or three people I've told (The majority of my friends found out through people gossiping, or me getting drunk at parties not being as careful about things such as sleeves and general behaviour) My friend then and told her mum. She said she was worried and couldn't handle it, and her mum is who she talks to. I felt incredibley betrayed by her, if you're worried about someone surely it makes sense to talk to THAT PERSON about your worries and get them straightened out and whatnot.
I'm an incredibley private person, I'm almost completely closed off about the 'important stuff' even to my closest friends, so if I were to let someone in like that it means I've put a huge amount of trust in them and an excuse like 'I thought I was helping' is utter pish and I'd feel very hurt and betrayed.
Although, nowadays If I trusted someone that much then I'm guessing they'd know me well enough to see how private I am and how much I don't like people helping me.
So if I found out a friend is self harming, I'd be glad they felt they could come to me and I wouldn't tell a soul (Unless they really wanted me to). I'd try and help them using my own experiences. It doesn't take a genius to work out if you're wanting advice or help on something it's best to get it from someone who has been there before.
The way I see it, when you're caught in a pit of depression/anger/selfhatred/selfpity etc no one can get you out, I mean people can offer an ear and advice but ultimately it's down to you to save yourself.
You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped.
So yeah basically, it's all about when you feel you're ready to start getting over your problems.
Yeah, I ramble.
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