Narrating the self-injured body.

Area of Science:

• Qualitative Health Research
• Sociology of the Body
• Psychological Narratives

Background:

• Illness narratives are established tools for understanding chronic illness.
• Self-injury is a complex behavior with diverse experiences and expressions.
• The phenomenological approach focuses on lived experiences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the utility of Frank's illness narrative typology for analyzing self-injury accounts.
• To examine how individuals narrate their self-injured bodies, focusing on bodily aftermath.
• To demonstrate how diverse narratives of the self-injured body can inform care and offer resources.

Main Methods:

• Phenomenological approach analyzing narrative interviews.
• 24 narrative interviews with 12 individuals who have self-injured.
• Focus on participants' accounts of their self-injured bodies, including scars, marks, and wounds.

Main Results:

• Frank's typology effectively analyzes diverse self-injury practices, experiences, and narratives.
• Self-injury scars are communicative, carrying varied meanings and interpretations.
• Accounts of the bodily aftermath reveal the lived experience of self-injury.

Conclusions:

• Analyzing illness narratives, specifically Frank's typology, provides insight into self-injury.
• Understanding diverse narratives of the self-injured body can foster compassionate, non-judgmental care.
• Highlighting narrative diversity offers an optimistic resource for individuals who self-injure.