Assessing the reasons for deliberate self-harm in young people

Associations between school climate, suicidal thoughts, and behaviors and ethnicity among middle school students

“…School‐aged youth, especially adolescents, may engage in a variety of risk behaviors that are detrimental to the health and wellbeing of themselves. Although a large portion of studies investigating suicidal thoughts and behavior (STB) include adults and teenagers within a clinical population (e.g., Arkins, Tyrell, Herlihy, & Crowley, ; Kene & Hovey, ), few studies examine STB among middle school children in the general population. Given research demonstrating that STB is more prevalent among younger students (e.g., middle schoolers) than previously thought (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], ), it is important to begin expanding studies of STB to include this population.…”

“…Yet motivations for STB have received less attention. Studies designed specifically to identify why youth engaged in STB reported reasons such as conflict with a family member, self-punishment, and escape from pain (Arkins et al, 2013;Kene & Hovey, 2014;Rasmussen, Hawton, Philpott-Morgan, & O'Connor, 2016). However, these studies were either based in European countries or included U.S. adults in psychiatric hospitals.…”

A Necessary Pain: A Literature Review of Young People’s Experiences of Self-Harm

“…McAllister (2003) argues that these negative consequences can not only harm the person physically, but also risk their life. As mentioned earlier, research (Arkins et al, 2013;Hicks & Hinck, 2008;ISSS, 2016) shows an increased risk of suicide in those with self-harming behaviour. However, the results of this literature study show that young people who self-harm do not self-harm with the intention of taking their own lives, instead they wish to live and the only way to do so is to handle their suffering with self-harma necessary pain.…”

“…In the present results, this is seen in young people's experiences of shame and guilt where they consider themselves to have betrayed both themselves and others, and because of that punish themselves to atone for what they have done. Deafening these feelings by harming oneself provides relief for the moment but leads to increased feelings of shame and guilt afterwards which in turn must be alleviated with the help of self-harm (Arkins et al, 2013). This vicious circle of shame, anger and self-harm which can also be reinforced by the treatment and approach from healthcare professionals (Rayner & Warne, 2016).…”

“…Self-harming behaviours often debut between the ages of 12 and 14 and are more common in adolescents and young adults than among older people (Klonsky, 2011;Nock & Prinstein, 2004). Some researchers report that self-harm is more common among women than men (Arkins et al, 2013;Straiton et al, 2013), but other studies indicate it is equally common in both sexes (Klonsky, 2011;Lloyd-Richardson et al, 2007;Nock & Prinstein, 2004). Victor et al (2018) report that men and women share similar non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) characteristics and treatment outcomes, although men reported lower severity of most NSSI correlates (e.g., suicidality, psychopathology).…”