Young people’s stories of self–harm: A narrative study

Abstract

This study explores the way in which adolescents who have engaged in self-harm make sense of their self-harm and its relationship to the events that have occurred in their lives. The six adolescents (aged between 13 and 18 years) who had been engaging in self-harm were invited to tell their life stories. The analysis explored both the content and the structure of these narratives in order to identify what they regarded to be key events in their lives and also what appeared to have been defended and less fully integrated features of their lives. A primary finding was that the adolescents perceive a severe lack of understanding from others about self-harm, which appeared to inhibit them from developing coherent narratives. They also found it difficult to discuss and integrate the difficulties behind their self-harm, giving narratives that were poorly integrated with little true resolution. One prominent story shared by this group was a story of self-harm as a way of directing their anger inwards. The findings highlight the importance for adolescents of access to conversations where difficult past events can be processed and understood within the context of a life story, and the implications for identity formation.

Moving out of the Shadows: Accomplishing Bisexual Motherhood

“…In our thematic analysis we took a descriptive perspective to identify common themes and challenges emerging from the participants' stories (see Bold, 2012;Hill & Dallos, 2011;Riessman, 2008). Each author conducted her own initial thematic analyses of each interview in turn making comments on the interview transcript about the issues present and their apparent meaning for that participant, highlighting key content words used by the participant as far as possible.…”

Narratives of self-harm at school: Identifying trajectories of intervention in educational contexts

“…In general, the work made it possible to observe that the phenomenon of self-harming circulates in school contexts and belongs to both the imaginary and the real level of adolescents, who respond positively when invited to tell it, as evidence of a desire to narrate as well to be seen and helped. Thus, in line with the literature on the subject (Bareiss, 2014;Hill & Dallos, 2012), narration is a functional tool for developing meaning and meaningmaking processes in adolescents with conduct of self-harm; where the concrete plan of the act obscures the possibility of think disturbing emotions and memories, the narration of self-harm allows to access to a first symbolization and transformation of the emotion towards the representation of experience.…”

Ungdommers fortelling om egen selvskading

“…Individer som selvskader, synes å ha en nedsatt evne til å mentalisere og gjennom dette til å regulere egne affekter (Linehan, 1993). Selvskading blir av noen fremstilt som et kommunikasjonsmiddel når kommunikasjon med ord ikke er tilgjengelig (Hill & Dallos, 2011). Dermed gir dette materialet oss et interessant innblikk i tanker, følelser og erfaringer som ofte ikke er umiddelbart tilgjengelig blant unge som skader seg selv.…”