Doing it properly, doing it seriously and trivialising it: a discursive analysis of students' and counsellors' interview accounts of self-harm

Abstract

In light of academic accounts of the increasing incidence of self-harm, and growing media attention on the behaviour as a curious 'teen craze' (D'Onofrio, 2007), the paucity of research into dominant discourse on self-harm represents a significant gap in the literature. This thesis takes a step towards addressing this gap through exploring New Zealand university students' and high-school counsellors' interview accounts of self-harm. Four group interviews and fifteen individual interviews were conducted with university students who were currently, or had been, friends with someone who has deliberately harmed themselves without apparent suicidal intent. Twelve individual interviews were conducted with high-school counsellors with experience in working with young self-harmers. All transcribed interview material was subjected to detailed discursive analysis to identify key constructions of self-harm developed within participants' accounts, and to outline how participants managed the local demands of the interview context in and through these accounts. Across student and counsellor interviews, self-cutting was prioritised as 'quintessential self-harm', and 'standard' self-harm was described as a hidden means of coping with emotional distress. Features of 'standard' self-harm, as constructed within participant accounts, were used to differentiate 'serious' self-harm from less 'serious' self-harm. In particular, 'serious' self-harm was constructed as a coping strategy that represents a need rather than a choice, causes relatively serious physical damage, and/or is hidden from others. Through comparison with 'serious' self-harm, unconcealed and superficial wounding performed as an attention-seeking, subcultural and copycat 'thing to do' among adolescents was worked up as less 'serious'. Within participant accounts, less 'serious' self-harmers were routinely identified as more blameworthy and less deserving of help than 'serious' self-harmers. This valorised dichotomy between 'serious' self-harm and less 'serious' self-harm parallels dominant discourse on the behaviour within both academia and the popular media, and has significant implications for ways of being a young self-harmer in New Zealand.