On the Risks of Medicalization of Adolescents Self-Injuring Acts

Abstract

Although common among community adolescents, self-injuring acts are mainly studied by psychiatrists and psychologists and rarely by social work researchers. The preponderance of medical research in the field has come to associate self-injuring acts with mental issues. This view has to a large extent been adopted among professionals as well as among laypeople. When examining adolescents’ unsolicited internet published narratives, this medicalization of self-injuring acts was found to have negative consequences for disclosure and help-seeking, and hence limit the adolescents’ possibilities to get adequate help and support. The main objective of this work is to study adolescents’ views on hampering factors for help-seeking for self-injuring acts and the role of medicalisation for their willingness for disclosure and help-seeking. Disclosure of self-injuring acts within the social network was described as met with demands to seek professional mental help. Seeking professional help was accompanied with fear of being perceived as crazy or diagnosed as mentally ill. Internet websites were described as value free and safe arenas giving opportunity to disclose self-injuring acts without fear of being stigmatized and labelled as mentally ill. An extended involvement of social work researchers and professionals, approaching self-injuring acts not primarily as a sign of mental problems, but as an adolescent way of trying to manage a complicated social context, could enhance finding adequate support systems. It is also necessary that the medical profession contributes to a demedicalization of self-injuring acts.