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“My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm

Engagement in self-harm, defined as intentional self-poisoning or self-injury irrespective of the apparent purpose of the act, is increasing, particularly among girls and young women. Understanding the behavior from the perspective of those who self-harm is, therefore, vital in designing effective i...

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Autores principales: Norman, Hilary, Marzano, Lisa, Oskis, Andrea, Coulson, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9330153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35911219
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.914109
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author Norman, Hilary
Marzano, Lisa
Oskis, Andrea
Coulson, Mark
author_facet Norman, Hilary
Marzano, Lisa
Oskis, Andrea
Coulson, Mark
author_sort Norman, Hilary
collection PubMed
description Engagement in self-harm, defined as intentional self-poisoning or self-injury irrespective of the apparent purpose of the act, is increasing, particularly among girls and young women. Understanding the behavior from the perspective of those who self-harm is, therefore, vital in designing effective interventions and treatments. The current brief research report presents a key theme from an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the experience of self-harm among eight young women, aged between 18 and 29. The theme Is Self-Harm Bad? concerns the way in which participants both acknowledged and resisted a negative conception of self-harm that was often constructed from other people's attitudes. Three subthemes explore the reasons why participants were reluctant to endorse self-harm as bad: Self-Harm is the Symptom, Self-Harm Works (Until it Doesn't) and Self-Harm is Part of Me. The findings highlight the disparity between the characterization of self-harm as a highly risky behavior and the lived experience of self-harm as a functional means of emotion regulation. From a clinical perspective, the findings explored in this brief report suggest that highlighting the risks of self-harm may not be a sufficient deterrent. The recently revised draft National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance recommends that everyone presenting to hospital following self-harm should be given a comprehensive psychosocial assessment, of which the function is, in part, to understand why the person has self-harmed. The current study underlines the importance of seeing past the behavior to the underlying causes and exploring the meaning of self-harm to the individual in order to implement effective preventative interventions.
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spelling pubmed-93301532022-07-29 “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm Norman, Hilary Marzano, Lisa Oskis, Andrea Coulson, Mark Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Engagement in self-harm, defined as intentional self-poisoning or self-injury irrespective of the apparent purpose of the act, is increasing, particularly among girls and young women. Understanding the behavior from the perspective of those who self-harm is, therefore, vital in designing effective interventions and treatments. The current brief research report presents a key theme from an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the experience of self-harm among eight young women, aged between 18 and 29. The theme Is Self-Harm Bad? concerns the way in which participants both acknowledged and resisted a negative conception of self-harm that was often constructed from other people's attitudes. Three subthemes explore the reasons why participants were reluctant to endorse self-harm as bad: Self-Harm is the Symptom, Self-Harm Works (Until it Doesn't) and Self-Harm is Part of Me. The findings highlight the disparity between the characterization of self-harm as a highly risky behavior and the lived experience of self-harm as a functional means of emotion regulation. From a clinical perspective, the findings explored in this brief report suggest that highlighting the risks of self-harm may not be a sufficient deterrent. The recently revised draft National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance recommends that everyone presenting to hospital following self-harm should be given a comprehensive psychosocial assessment, of which the function is, in part, to understand why the person has self-harmed. The current study underlines the importance of seeing past the behavior to the underlying causes and exploring the meaning of self-harm to the individual in order to implement effective preventative interventions. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9330153/ /pubmed/35911219 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.914109 Text en Copyright © 2022 Norman, Marzano, Oskis and Coulson. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Norman, Hilary
Marzano, Lisa
Oskis, Andrea
Coulson, Mark
“My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title_full “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title_fullStr “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title_full_unstemmed “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title_short “My Heart and My Brain Is What's Bleeding, These Are Just Cuts.” An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Young Women's Experiences of Self-Harm
title_sort “my heart and my brain is what's bleeding, these are just cuts.” an interpretative phenomenological analysis of young women's experiences of self-harm
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9330153/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35911219
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.914109
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