Working With Clients Who Self‐Injure: A Grounded Theory Approach

Whisenhunt, Julia L.; Chang, Catherine Y.; Flowers, Lea R.; Brack, Gregory L.; O’Hara, Caroline; Raines, Tara C.

doi:10.1002/j.1556-6676.2014.00165.x

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Finding ways to cultivate various types of supportive relationships may be an important protective factor for those who self-injure [ 17 , 18 ]. Whisenhunt et al [ 38 ] and Buser et al [ 39 ] determined that social support was necessary in decreasing or extinguishing NSSI behavior. In particular, the results of this current study indicated that those who currently self-injure perceived less support from family and significant others than both other groups, and less peer support than those who never self-injured.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cross-sectional matched sample study of nonsuicidal self-injury among young adults: support for interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, with implications for coping strategies

Trepal

Wester

Merchant

2015

Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health

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BackgroundYoung adults are a high-risk group for nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). It is important to have a better understanding of these behaviors in order to facilitate effective research, intervention, and treatment. Models have been presented to explain these behaviors where emotion regulation, coping, and support play a role. Yet conflicting results have occurred based on demographic factors such as race and sex. While controlling for the observable demographic factors, this study sought to examine differences between individuals who currently engage in NSSI, engaged in NSSI in the past, and never engaged in NSSI related to emotions, coping strategies, interpersonal support, and ethnic identity and belonging.MethodsParticipants were selected from freshman students at two universities, in geographically different locations in the United States (N = 282). Participants in this study were matched on demographic factors: race, sex, and university. This led to demographically matched groups (current, past, never engagement in NSSI; n = 94 per group). Groups were compared on intrapersonal factors (i.e., emotions: depression and anxiety; coping strategies: adaptive and maladaptive; interpersonal support: family, friend, and significant other; and ethnic identity and belonging). Descriptive statistics and ANOVA with post hoc Scheffe were utilized to explicate differences between groups.ResultsIndividuals who never engaged in NSSI reported significantly higher levels of ethnic belonging and interpersonal support and lower levels of depression and anxiety than both groups who engaged in NSSI. Individuals who never self-injured used less adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies than participants who self-injured. Young adults who currently engaged in NSSI reported higher levels of depression and anxiety, higher levels of both types of coping, and perceived less support.ConclusionsIt is important to understand the differences between individuals who self-injure in comparison to those who do not so that mental health clinicians can provide more effective services and preventative efforts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A cross-sectional matched sample study of nonsuicidal self-injury among young adults: support for interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, with implications for coping strategies

Trepal

Wester

Merchant

2015

Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health

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“…We conceived of dance as a powerful conduit for invoking and presenting the subjective experience of self-injury; a sensitive, stigmatised and under-researched topic (Whisenhunt et al, 2014). The kinaesthetic and affective nature of dance was also perceived to resonate with the physical and sensory aspect of self-injury.…”

Section: The Dance Pieces: Integrating Our Bodies Into Knowingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Embodied interpretation: Assessing the knowledge produced through a dance-based inquiry

Seko

Katwyk

2016

ANZSWJ

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INTRODUCTION:Although the field of social work has experienced an exponential increase in the use of arts-based methodology, the way in which knowledge shared through artful presentations is understood by audience members remains understudied. As arts-based inquiry often involves active co-construction of meanings between researchers, participants and audiences, it is crucial for social work researchers to scrutinise the process of meaning making by audience members. In this article, we explore how audience members make sense of research findings presented through improvisational dance and how the provision of information about the dance may influence viewer responses. METHODS:A personal experience with self-injury documented in a creative poem was represented through the performance of improvisational dance pieces and assessed by two groups of viewers, with and without knowledge of the topic of the dances. The viewers were prompted to interpret the dances by reflecting on the feelings, thoughts and perceptions they had while watching the performance. A thematic analysis was conducted to compare and contrast the responses of the two groups FINDINGS: By comparing the interpretations of informed and uninformed viewers, we suggest that interpretation can be influenced by normative, socially constructed assumptions that hinder empathic and action-inspiring engagement. CONCLUSION:We conclude the article with a discussion of potential implications for social work research, practice and education.

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“…This ‘badness’ is often a general sense that self-harm is unhealthy, but there is also a sense in much of the literature 4 that there is something fundamentally ‘wrong’ with self-harm. It is variously described as ‘disturbing’ (Feldman, 1988: 252; LeCloux, 2013: 324), ‘maladaptive’ (Lewis et al., 2011: 553), ‘disfiguring and can be repulsive to counsellors’ (Whisenhunt et al., 2014: 392), ‘frightening’ (Whisenhunt et al., 2014: 392), a ‘problem behaviour’ (Bakken and Gunter, 2012: 342), and a ‘truly gruesome behaviour’ (Levenkron, 1998: 22). In the wider culture, self-harm is also regarded as disgusting, disturbing, and socially inappropriate; many individuals who engage in self-harm practices, including myself, can testify to that.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But my issue is that the ‘reasons for’ self-harm are often obscured by the insistence on seeing self-harm as a pathological act. This narrowed focus leads to responses such as a demand by clinicians that individuals ‘contract’ to cease self-harm before any kind of treatment will occur – even if the individual did not seek treatment for the self-harm but something that the self-harm is merely a symptom of – and will threaten to terminate such ‘treatment’ if said contract is ‘broken’ (see Favazza, 2011: 267; Strong, 2005: 171–172; Whisenhunt et al., 2014). Alternatively, it leads to responses such as the refusal to provide medical treatment for self-harm wounds, or treatment that would be unacceptable for any other injury – being stapled or stitched up without anaesthesia, for example, as I have been (see also Pembroke, 2004: 30) – or being refused psychiatric help when requested or even required (Pembroke, 2004: 30).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bodywork: Self-harm, trauma, and embodied expressions of pain

Gurung

2018

Arts and Humanities in Higher Education

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Self-harm, or self-mutilation, is generally viewed in academic literature as a pathological act, usually born out of trauma and/or a psychological and personality defect. Individuals who engage in self-harm are usually seen as damaged, destructive, and pathological. While self-harm is not a desirable act, this paper argues through the narratives of those who engage in such acts that self-harm may be better construed as a meaningful, embodied emotional practice, bound up in social (mis)understandings of psychological pain and how best to attend to such pain. In particular, this paper suggests that those who engage in self-harm practices are performing embodied, socially situated acts of healing, survival, and self-creation in a physical attempt to retell complex, fragmented stories of abuse, existential angst, trauma, and loss of self. While these individuals may be more or less successful in such attempts, this paper suggests that understandings of self-harm would benefit from more nuanced approaches to individuals’ embodied expressions of pain that take into account the difficult nature of psychological suffering and the effects of trauma.

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Working With Clients Who Self‐Injure: A Grounded Theory Approach

Cited by 8 publications

References 40 publications

A cross-sectional matched sample study of nonsuicidal self-injury among young adults: support for interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, with implications for coping strategies

A cross-sectional matched sample study of nonsuicidal self-injury among young adults: support for interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, with implications for coping strategies

Embodied interpretation: Assessing the knowledge produced through a dance-based inquiry

Bodywork: Self-harm, trauma, and embodied expressions of pain

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