Self-harm interpersonal and holistic perspectives

Abstract: Who are the adolescents who purposely cut or burn their wrists, arms, or some other parts of their body? The fundamental question I raise in this dissertation is whether or not the portrait of self-harming adolescents as being exposed to others’ hostility in their everyday life environments and experiencing internal adjustment problems, particularly depressive symptoms, correctly represents their symptomology. I want to answer three questions: 1) What can be done to interrupt the maladaptive link that leads adolescents who experience internalizing symptoms to perform self-harming behaviors? 2) Are adolescent self-harmers typically exposed to others’ hostility or are they also involved in hostile interactions with other people? and, 3) What are the critical interpersonal and adjustment features of adolescent selfharmers? The results show that: 1) Adolescent girls with high depressive symptoms who feel at ease communicating with their parents do not use selfharm as a coping strategy when facing negative emotional experiences to the same extent as girls with high depressive symptoms who do not experience communication with parents as easy; 2) Adolescents who are involved in mutually hostile relationships with people who they meet in their daily life express more self-harming behaviors than adolescents who are exposed to others’ hostility; and, 3) Living in mutually hostile interactions with other people and experiencing both internalizing and externalizing problems seem to be key features of adolescents who harm themselves. Taken together, the results of this dissertation go beyond the traditional representation of selfharmers, and offer a holistic way of identifying a problem scenario under which adolescents self-harm. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.