Ah, yes, one of the most common problems. Although I'm not privvy to every detail (yet) my girlfriend's friend is cutting herself, and she beleives it's for attention. I'm unsure, but I told her to talk to the girl, try to find out why she would need attention so much. I'm wondering if any of you have any ideas on how to approach this?

It's likely that she's depressed. She may need a lot of help. Professional help even. First try to get her to a counselor (school counselor would probably be the easist). That'll probably be a helpful step whether she's doing it for attention or not.

I don't believe cutting is to gain attention. Most cutters are good at hiding it. They cut in order to cope. They don't know how to deal with intense pressure and emotions so they cut in order to release the pressure and to express their pain.

Your gf's friend has taken the first step in getting help. She told someone. The next thing that has to be done is to try to figure out what is triggering the cutting and to seek professional help from a counselor. The help that your gf can offer is to help her friend find a good counselor or mental health professional. She can help her line up appointments and drive her to them. And when her friend has an urge to cut she can be available to talk to her or to go out with a walk with her or some other activity such as watching a movie.

Jusork and Georgia are both quite correct to suggest that your girlfriend's friend be encouraged to seek professional help, cutting is not usually an attention seeking device but it is a very loud scream for help. Your girlfriend may well lose her friend over it, but I would definitely go to a trusted adult with this problem and foce the issue of getting the girl into counselling.
You might also want to post this question again in AP's Health Forum, someone may see it there with more insight into this particular issue .
Good luck

It could be a whole array of things. The thing is that she needs to seek professional help.

My thought is that it could be a hormonal imbalance... I am not going to explain in great detail why I think that but I think you really need to find a way to encourage her to get help.

I recently befriended a girl who told me she used to cut herself. She said she used to like the way it felt- yeah, weird to me too, but its like why some people get pierced or tattooed. Anyway, she needs to find out why because obviousy if she's cutting on her wrists or other areas that contain major vessels, she needs an intervention.