“Every time when I’m in a bad mood, I’ll scratch my arm, which can make me feel less sad.” “There was a classmate in the class who did that, and the teacher never criticized him again, so I also thought Try” “I think it’s a cool, decadent beauty to do that.” In the psychological clinic, some clients will have some behaviors that hurt themselves, especially in recent years, “self-mutilation” has even quietly become “popular” among teenagers. When it comes to self-mutilation, people have many misunderstandings. They think that self-mutilation is abnormal and unreasonable, or that self-mutilation is unreasonable, or that people who engage in self-mutilation are dangerous, and they are afraid to avoid it. In fact, self-harm is a very common mentality. Everyone may have the idea of self-harm, but most people do not take actual action. It’s hard to say whether self-mutilation is a psychological problem, because the criteria for determining “mental problems” are multi-layered. All are patients, without exception. In the psychological assessment, we generally make preliminary assessments based on three criteria: “the duration of the problem, the degree of damage to social functions, and the degree of mental distress”. The higher the score, the more serious the problem may be.
The seven motivations for self-harm
- Adjustment of emotions This is one of the effects that self-harm people most often want to achieve. When an individual has too many negative emotions, including anger towards the outside world, intense anxiety or frustration, they may use self-harm as a way of coping with stress.
- Self-punishment People who are less confident in themselves, or who are easy to blame themselves, will use self-injury to express their anger towards themselves and punish themselves for their worthlessness.
- There are many family members, friends or teachers who are concerned about the self-harming people. Whenever the concerned person feels tired, frustrated, or even ignored, they are accustomed to self-harm to attract other people’s attention, and even control the important people around them. .
- Resistance to dissociation The state of dissociation is that when people face a lot of psychological pressure, they will make themselves numb and hope to ignore the pain. But numbness also makes people lose the sense of being alive, so by self-mutilation, they make themselves feel pain and regain the feeling of being alive.
- Resist suicide When negative emotions accumulate to a certain extent, it may induce suicidal thoughts; self-injury people think that they may stay away from suicide if they use self-injury to relieve some negative emotions before attempting suicide.
- Pursuit of stimulation When the human body is injured, the brain secretes “endorphins” at the same time, which makes people feel euphoric and drives away the pain. Sometimes, self-harm can also trigger sensations like riding a roller coaster or bouncing in the air. Teenagers openly cut their wrists in online live broadcasts, often using this self-mutilating behavior to pursue pleasure together and to build peer identification.
- How to get out of the quagmire of self-harm?
- Know why you hurt yourself? Understand your behavior: The first step is to understand why you do what you do. If you can understand what self-injury can do to you, you can try to meet these needs in other ways, through new Ways to relieve emotional pain, a lot of times you’re just stuck and not really cornered. Generally speaking, we do or do that for three reasons: 1. The reaction to external things. 2. Because you think it will be beneficial to do so. 3. Your actions can get you out of an unpleasant situation.
When self-harm occurs, think about:
- What did I do? 2. What happened before I did it? 3. What was the result of doing this? Observe your emotions: maybe you are often filled with painful feelings, what we need to do is to step back and observe How we feel, which means observing how we feel and why we feel the way we feel, we need to pay attention to how we feel, not avoid it or deal with it in a self-harming way.
- Find a new way of coping. If you hurt yourself to get rid of your painful feelings, try to write down your feelings. Find a friend you trust and talk about your painful feelings. Watch a movie that resonates with you. Draw and graffiti Ways to picture your painful feelings. If the self-injury is to calm yourself Take a hot bath Do some stretching exercises Vigorous exercise Hit pillows or mattresses with your fists that won’t hurt yourself Squeeze stress balls or plasticine, clay, etc. Shred old magazines and newspapers
- Seek professional help If you have tried some methods and still can’t change the habit of self-injury, you need to seek the help of a psychotherapist or a psychiatrist. The doctor can work with you to find the cause of self-injury and guide you. Learn new ways to deal with self-harm thoughts. Self-harm doesn’t happen out of nowhere and is sometimes associated with your chronic low mood. Persistent low mood is a manifestation of mental illnesses such as depression. Some people with schizophrenia may also experience hallucinations and delusions. Under the control of self-injury, if you receive timely treatment from a psychiatrist or psychotherapist, the self-injury behavior will naturally improve or even disappear when the condition improves. In addition to this, early childhood experiences, personality traits, other traumatic experiences, etc. may all be associated with self-injury behaviors, and you are simply using self-injury to deal with the feelings associated with them. Find the right psychotherapist for a clearer diagnosis and effective treatment.
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