Self-harming behaviour is a relatively frequent form of high risk behaviour in adolescents and has undergone major changes during the last decades. These mainly include the prevalence, comorbidity and a wider range of the forms of self-harming behaviour. The main objective of this study is to provide some up-to-date preliminary findings related to the prevalence of self-harm in the population of 12 to 18-year-old adolescents in Slovakia. Using The Self-Harm Inventory, the authors have examined the prevalence of the individual forms of self-harm and analysed them with regard to age and sex. The results indicate a high prevalence of self-harm among adolescents (59.11%), with a higher prevalence in women, the absence of a correlation with age and the presence of cross-gender differences in the forms of self-harming behaviour. The conclusions indicate a need for a clearer definition of the term self-harm and in particular of the forms of behaviour which may be considered as a type of this high risk behaviour. In the context of the DSM-5 proposal for the diagnostics of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, the study discusses the many diverse definitions of self-harm and especially the importance of studying the indirect psychological forms of self-harming behaviour.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors, and other associated professions, as well as the public from all over Europe have noticed the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. In this regard, adolescents appear to be a highly vulnerable group, which is more affected than adults and children in many aspects. This study focuses on a specific and extremely maladaptive way of coping with mental stress and problems-deliberate self-harm. It offers an epidemiological study of the prevalence of self-harm among Slovak youths, its forms and related variables, carried out on a sample of 2,280 adolescents aged 11-19 using the SHI questionnaire. The results reveal that within the overall prevalence of 45.2%, the most vulnerable group are girls from nontraditional families who began to self-harm at an early age. The most frequent forms of self-harm among adolescents were torturing with selfdefeating thoughts, followed by both direct and indirect forms of physical self-harm. An analysis of the willingness to disclose self-harming behaviour shows that the need to raise awareness of this behaviour should be mostly oriented towards adolescents.
The self-harming behaviour in adolescence as a form of high risk behaviour has recently undergone several changes, which involve three main areas -the prevalence, comorbidity and forms of selfharm. The problem of most studies which have tried to present relevant data with regard to selfharming behaviour is the question of which forms should be included in the study or which forms belong under the notion of self-harm. The ambiguous definition makes it problematic to observe the development of this phenomenon or to compare the data from multiple studies or countries. This study attempts to bring preliminary data related to the prevalence and forms of self-harming behaviour from three perspectives: 1/ self-harm as an intentional self-inflicted damage to the surface of the body, with the expectation that the injury will only lead to minor or moderate physical harm (called "Direct Physical Self-Harm"); 2/ self-harm as an intentional self-inflicted damage to the body, including indirect forms -e.g. through substance abuse (alcohol, medication etc.) or an intervention into the way the organism functions (called "Indirect Physical Self-Harm"); 3/ self-harm as any intentional self-inflicted damage to the body or mind of a person, including forms that cause psychological harm (called "Mental Self-Harm"). The study presents the prevalence of self-harming behaviour in the context of three perspectives and discusses the benefits of these views, their risks as well as the stimuli for further research in the area of selfharming behaviour in the adolescent population.
The subjective nature of aesthetic experience and the different aesthetic evaluation of the same impulses raise the suspicion of many thinkers to see beauty as a matter of a percipient's individuality, and of beauty's formation through external historical and cultural influences. Authors impeach this thesis and present the questions, whether it is possible to find cognitive aspects or purposes in aesthetic judgements and in beauty perception, and if it is possible to meaningfully build cognitive aesthetics as a science about the epistemic background of beauty and art.On the example of attraction, the mechanisms of evolutionarily universalistic approach are shown. In this case, an attractiveness evaluation can be understood as an unconscious calculating process where we evaluate sensory inputs without consciously regarding the evaluation algorithms which were acquired in the course of evolution or upbringing. At the same time, authors add the cognitive approach stressing the idea, that the attractiveness of an average object proves that it has a higher degree of correspondence with its prototype. For this reason our ideal of beauty is often conditioned by our education, individual history, and culture.The clarification of functioning of these mechanisms enables to present a model of how both systems work together, and so provides an explanation of why there are objects which we all like and why we are sensitive to very similar impulses, but on the other hand, this could also explain why there is an individual, historical, and cultural interdependence of aesthetic values.
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