Self-harm refers to people's intentional harm to their own bodies, that is, consciously hurting their bodies in various ways, which can also be called self-abuse, and it is a way to relieve emotional pain and life pressure.
Common self-mutilation methods include knife wound, burn, hair cutting, skin scraping until bleeding, hitting a wall, drug abuse or overdose.
Self-harm usually begins in teenagers and may last until the age of 28-32. Women are more likely to hurt themselves than men.
Second, the main "role" of self-harm behavior
1 is a way to cope with difficulties and pains, including anxiety, depression, intimidation, discrimination, alienation of friends, decline in academic performance, abuse, family breakdown, or other problems encountered in daily life.
People who intentionally hurt themselves often have strong emotions such as self-disgust, fear, worry, guilt, depression, embarrassment and loneliness. When they feel extremely helpless, out of control and desperate in the face of difficulties, it seems that only through self-harm.
Unbearable emotional pain can be transformed into physical form, so as to vent one's emotions, relieve emotional pain and life pressure, relieve anger and tension, and gain control by being able to control what one has done to oneself.
Sense, so as to prevent yourself from doing worse things. In real life, women are more inclined to vent their emotions through self-harm than men.
2
This is a way to punish yourself. Self-mutilators may feel unbearable guilt and shame about what they have done or what they can't control, and punish themselves through self-mutilation. Self-mutilation pass
Self-harm behavior can also convey one's inner confusion to others, or gain and maintain one's influence on others' behavior, or get pleasure, just like falling into drug addiction, or divert attention from emotional pain.
To physical pain; Or continue the abuse pattern of childhood experience, or express or suppress one's sexual desire.
three
Is an act of self-destruction. Most self-harm behaviors are harmful on the surface, but they are usually not dangerous. Usually they don't want to commit suicide. Instead, I want to release psychological pressure and close it.
Emotion is looking for an outlet to vent. They hurt their bodies in order to survive. But self-harm can also lead to death or lifelong disability, even if the self-harm person did not have such an intention at first, those who repeatedly self-harm
Disabled people often have long-term or periodic psychological problems and may have potential suicidal tendencies.
Third, the causes of adolescent self-harm
1 special family environment
mutilate oneself
Behavior is related to the special family environment in childhood. Many teenagers who have self-harm behavior either live in families with divorced parents, or are not brought up by their parents, or are indulged in various ways when they are young, but later severely controlled, or are fathers.
The expectation of the mother is too high, which is divorced from the actual bearing capacity of the child. It is difficult for these children to develop three important self-tolerance abilities: maintaining self-worth, bearing strong negative influences, and maintaining communication with others. Because his parents are with him.
Children ignore their feelings in the process of growing up, making them feel that it is difficult for them to master the solution to the problem. Over time, they regard avoiding problems as their own way of doing things.
2 Personality and psychological characteristics
(1) is very sensitive to rejection and criticism from others.
(2) Being angry for a long time and being strongly dissatisfied with yourself.
(3) Things are often emotional, impulsive and lack of impulse control.
(4) Emotional depression
(5) Have a strong competitive spirit, but often suppress this feeling.
(6) Inferiority and lack of confidence in life.
(7) It is difficult to control your life.
(8) Chronic anxiety
I don't think I can change everything in front of me.
(10) When coping with pressure, they tend to suppress their anger, usually unable to plan their future, tend to avoid problems, have narrative obstacles, and cannot describe and express their feelings in words.
Lack of dopamine content in the brain
People who hurt themselves are often extremely angry, impulsive, anxious and aggressive. Studies have shown that this may be related to the low dopamine content in their brains. Some people who get angry easily will vent their anger if the dopamine content in their brains is normal.
People with less content will vent their anger through self-harm or suicide, which shows that the occurrence of self-harm has a certain physiological basis and may be affected by genetic inheritance.
4 imitation
(1) To some extent, teenagers will learn to do this after seeing or hearing their good friends hurt themselves. For example, some students just imitate others and carve their names on their arms.
(2) Imitate others' self-harm behavior through the media.
(3) Educational activities to prevent teenagers from self-harm and suicide may have a negative impact, making them feel that self-harm or suicide is very common, a normal response to pressure and an escape from reality. Therefore, activities to prevent teenagers from self-harm and suicide must be carefully planned and implemented.
5 potential mental illness
Teenagers who have self-harm behavior may suffer from acute or chronic psychological diseases, such as borderline personality disorder, depression, post-traumatic stress reaction, dissociative disease, eating disorder, phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, impulse control disorder and so on. When they encounter emergency emotional stress, they may react negatively, act impulsively, and then do self-harm.
How to help children who have self-harm?
1 Parents and teachers should pay attention to the "alarm" issued by their children.
Is it because children suddenly don't like to wear tops or shorts as before?
Do you wear ornaments on your arms to cover up your scars?
Do you get angry, depressed, crying or lonely more easily than usual?
Is it a decline in academic performance and inattention?
Do you have sleep disorders, insomnia or lethargy?
Is there any change in diet?
Are you willing to communicate with others?
Do you drink or abuse drugs?
Do not shy away from talking about self-harm behavior.
If parents find that their children have self-harm behavior, the first thing to do is to dare to talk about this topic with their children and share his feelings, so that the children will feel comfortable and relaxed because of their parents' understanding; If you don't want to share your feelings with your parents, parents can do some simple and positive activities to distract their children, such as watching movies and going for a walk in the park.
Be a good listener.
Parents need to treat this behavior with a calm and friendly attitude, listen carefully to the child's troubles, understand why he hurts himself, and admit and accept his pain. Don't worry about children's self-harm behavior.
Judges can't punish children's self-harm behavior. Parents should show concern, support and sympathy for children who have self-harm behavior, concentrate on what happened to the child and ask him what he can do to help him. parents
Be optimistic in front of children. Parents' anger, resentment and pain will only make children feel guilty and inferior, making the situation worse and falling into a vicious circle.
Don't force children to give up self-harm.
Stopping self-harm behavior immediately is usually not the best way to solve the problem. It is more important to provide help and mutual understanding to children in the short term. As parents, don't force children to give up self-harm and overcome it.
Behavior can only depend on the children themselves. Let children think about some problems: you may not give up self-harm behavior completely, but you should choose the right time and way to control this behavior; You can do something about self-harm.
Some restrictions; You are responsible for your actions.
5 Reasonable restrictions on children's behavior
Parents make some reasonable restrictions on persisting in hurting their children, thus limiting the degree of injury. For example, children are required to do self-harm in a limited way at a designated place and time. Making these restrictions can make children understand that many people care about him and love him, and finally slowly overcome self-harm behavior.
6 provide substitutes for self-harm behavior
In order to help children, parents should consider what causes their children's self-harm behavior and whether there are other ways to replace it. Help children think about whether they should do something else to get it under increasing pressure.
Release such as grabbing a handful of ice cubes until they melt; Hit the ball hard with a racket; Hit the pillow or hit the wall with the pillow. Through this behavior, children can realize that they can relieve stress without hurting their bodies.
Force.
7 seek professional help
When parents find that their children have self-harm behavior, they can seek the help of psychologists, psychiatrists and other professionals. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, group therapy, rational emotional therapy, family therapy and other psychotherapy, we can help self-mutilation teenagers change their negative cognition, learn to control their emotions, enhance their social skills and self-confidence, and improve their family relations.
According to the doctor's advice, patients can take some selective dopamine uptake inhibitors to improve the dopamine deficiency in the body. People with depression, post-traumatic stress and severe anxiety may need to take drugs to relieve depression and anxiety symptoms and stabilize their mood.
8 parents' actions
(1) In order to achieve better treatment effect, parents need to actively participate in the treatment plan.
(2) Parents should encourage their children to participate in sports and recreational activities beneficial to physical and mental health to meet their basic needs for love, friendship and safety.
(3) Parents should take the initiative to know their children's friends, and they can learn about their children's self-harm behavior as soon as possible.
With the change of environment, the maturity of thought and the better control of impulse, children's self-harm behavior will gradually decrease. Once they get through the psychological crisis, they generally don't have self-harm behavior when they enter adulthood.