Fighting with Oneself to Maintain the Interaction Order: A Sociological Approach to Self‐Injury Daily Process

Brossard, Baptiste

doi:10.1002/symb.118

Cited by 23 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Once a shamed self is established, it thus takes on a self-perpetuating life of its own, leading to more self-injury and consequently to more shame. I want to propose that self-injuring individuals do not lack the ability to selfsoothe or regulate emotions (they do regulate emotions in many different ways, not only by self-injury, e.g., see Brossard 2014) or that they necessarily suffer from a clinical psychopathology, but that intense, relentless shame may explain actions of self-injury and may be what is behind all the different "symptoms" people who selfinjure may display. If self-injury were socially and culturally accepted as an emotion management and survival strategy, the self-perpetuating cycle of shame would not necessarily have to trigger more shame.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The objective of this communication concerns the more intense shame states, which are not easily disregarded and which may turn into self-injury. It is not argued that shame always turns into self-injury, individuals may also redirect the need to cut by using other means, as in Brossard's (2014) example by writing about the urge to cut. However, the concept argued for in this communication draws on the idea of shame as an often-disguised emotion and when shame is hidden from the self and others, it easily leads to more shame (Scheff 2000).…”

Section: Personal Reflexive Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Self-perpetuating Cycle of Shame and Self-injury

Gunnarsson

2020

Humanity & Society

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Although previous studies have considered shame to be a significant emotion in making sense of self-injury, the connection is still not fully understood. Drawing on sociological ideas on shame, this communication contributes to a theoretical understanding of actions of self-injury by demonstrating how shame operates and unfolds in social interaction. It argues for how shame and self-injury may reproduce and amplify each other, hence turning into a self-perpetuating cycle of shame and self-injury. It shows how shame is triggered in social interaction, how shame leads to self-injury, and how self-injury may turn into more shame. Self-injury is used to fend off shame by upholding social and cultural commitments and maintaining social bonds with others. However, self-injury may also threaten social order and social bonds and, consequently, trigger more shame. The most important reason that self-injury does not fully work as emotion work, and internalized social control, lies in the interactive cycle of shame, that is, you feel shame and cut, you cut again and are (a)shamed, you are shamed and cut, and so on. It is proposed that people who self-injure do not necessarily lack the ability to self-soothe or regulate emotions or that they suffer from a clinical psychopathology.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Personal Reflexive Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Self-perpetuating Cycle of Shame and Self-injury

Gunnarsson

2020

Humanity & Society

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“…While body modifications are undertaken for a variety of reasons – personal, social, and religious – in each case, the pain inflicted is not the sole objective of the practice. In self‐injury, by contrast, the practice itself is the purpose: self‐injurers report that their pain serves a cathartic purpose (Brossard ). Furthermore, body modifications are typically carried out by others on a recipient's body, while self‐injury is done to oneself, usually in private.…”

Section: Self‐injury As Body Modification?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A sociological perspective, by contrast, takes into account the social context, cultural meanings, and the diversity of experiences and backgrounds among self‐injurers (Adler and Adler ; Bates ; Guertin et al ; Solomon and Farrand ). Scholars taking a sociological approach to self‐injury have fruitfully applied theoretical frameworks including symbolic interactionism (Brossard ), emotion work (Chandler ), and deviance (Hodgson ). Gilman's (2012) historical analysis highlights how public perceptions of self‐injury evolved over time from religious zeal to partial insanity to psychiatric disorder.…”

Section: Sociological Approaches To Self‐injurymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociological Approaches to Self‐injury

Taylor

Ibañez

2015

Sociology Compass

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This paper reviews the burgeoning sociological literature on non-suicidal self-injury, in which individuals intentionally harm themselves by cutting, burning, scratching, or smashing their body parts. We identify challenges to studying self-injury, such as conf licting definitions and categorizations. Comparing self-injury to other behaviors such as suicide, body modification, and self-mutilation, we assert that non-suicidal self-injury deserves its own conceptual category. We explain how a critical sociological approach provides a valuable counterweight to medical and psychological studies of self-injury. In particular, this paper advances the deviance perspective. Finally, we highlight how technology has allowed self-injurers to build supportive communities in cyberspace, blurring the line between hidden and public acts. We conclude with suggestions for future directions in the study of self-injury.

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“…Recently, the dominance of this wholly intrapsychic and individualistic framing of self‐injury has been challenged by sociological and historical work that has produced important insights into its social aetiology, social learning and social construal/construction (Adler and Adler , , , , Brossard , Chandler , , , , Chandler et al . , , Chaney , Frost , Hodgson , Inckle , , Kilby , McShane , Millard , Steggals ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The social life of self‐injury: exploring the communicative dimension of a very personal practice

Steggals

Lawler

Graham

2019

Sociology Health & Illness

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This article makes the case for a sociological focus on the communicative, relational and interactional dimensions of nonsuicidal self‐injury. While current research tends to be dominated by highly individual and intrapsychic models, it is increasingly observed that such models leave a social dimension to the practice unexplained. A burgeoning sociological literature has begun to address this paradox of the social in self‐injury; however, we argue that the role of the social must be considered beyond the issues of aetiology, social learning and social construal/construction that are typically covered in this literature. Specifically, we argue that, since the lived meanings of self‐injury directly implicate the interactional along with the intrapsychic, a more systematic focus on the role of social relations and social communication is vital. To illustrate this conceptual argument and embed it in the lived experiences of self‐injury, we draw on two case studies taken from pilot research conducted by the authors. The more thoroughly sociological approach to self‐injury that we present here offers an important compliment to the existing evidence base by reframing the absent presence of social communication contained within it, and suggesting important future directions for research.

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Fighting with Oneself to Maintain the Interaction Order: A Sociological Approach to Self‐Injury Daily Process

Cited by 23 publications

References 15 publications

The Self-perpetuating Cycle of Shame and Self-injury

The Self-perpetuating Cycle of Shame and Self-injury

Sociological Approaches to Self‐injury

The social life of self‐injury: exploring the communicative dimension of a very personal practice

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