Interview And Intervention Of Non-suicidal Self-injury In Adolescents

Non-suicidal self-injury(NSSI,hereafter referred to as self-injury),refers to individuals who intentionally injure themselves,mainly in the form of scratching,cutting skin,pulling hair and hitting themselves,etc.Individuals injure themselves without suicidal intent and are not socially accepted.Adolescents are a high prevalence of selfinjurious behavior,and the rate of having a history of self-injury in the adolescent population is as high as 30%-40%(Yulong Wang,Yalan Qin,Can Xiao,Xiuyun Lin,2016).About 50% of those who commit self-injurious behaviors rarely or no longer self-injure,and 50% will repeatedly self-injure at high frequencies.Therefore,how to scientifically predict adolescents’ self-injurious behaviors and make effective interventions is an important practical issue for researchers.The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictors of persistent and discontinued self-injury in adolescents and to provide a counseling intervention for adolescents who persist in self-injury.Study 1 was a qualitative study of predictors of persistence and cessation of self-injury in adolescents.Eighteen adolescents who had self-injured and college students who had self-injured during adolescence were selected for interviews,and all interview text data were coded and analyzed using three-level coding to construct a theory of predictors of persistence and cessation of adolescent self-injurious behavior,rooted in primary data.The results showed that the predictive factors of persistent self-injury in adolescents could be divided into 3 areas: functions of self-injury,negative self-concept,and environmental factors.The functions of self-injury included emotional regulation,interpersonal influence,punishing oneself,fighting suicide,fighting dissociation,and experiencing avoidance;the negative self-concepts were negative academic self-concept,negative physical selfconcept,negative social self-concept,and negative psychological self-concept;and the environmental factors included family environmental factors and school environmental factors.Predictive factors for stopping self-injury included four aspects: environmental factors,positive self-concept,attitude toward self-injury,and sense of hope.The environmental factors were divided into three aspects: family support,peer support,and teacher support;positive self-concept included positive academic self-concept,positive physical self-concept,positive psychological self-concept,and positive social self-concept;attitudes toward self-injury included pain avoidance and negative evaluation of self-injury;and sense of hope included the identification of future goals and motivation to pursue them.In Study 1,self-concept was found to affect on both persistence and cessation of selfinjury in adolescents;negative self-evaluation was a predictor of repeated self-injury in adolescents,and conversely,positive self-concept was a predictor of cessation of selfinjury;therefore,Study 2 used Focused Solution Short Course Therapy(SFBT)to intervene on the level of self-concept in adolescents who self-injured by randomly assigning 12 adolescents from Study 1,6 to the intervention group and 6 to the waiting group,and while the experimental group underwent the SFBT intervention,the waiting group underwent music relaxation therapy and self-concept levels were measured pre and post using the Wallace Self-Concept Inventory.The results showed that the self-concept levels of the six self-injured adolescents who participated in the SFBT intervention were significantly improved,there was a significant difference between the post-test of selfconcept levels of the subjects who participated in the SFBT intervention and those who participated in the music relaxation treatment,and the change in self-concept levels of the subjects who participated in the SFBT intervention was greater than that of the subjects who participated in the music relaxation treatment,which indicated that the SFBT This indicates that the psychological intervention approach of SFBT can effectively improve the self-concept level of self-injured adolescents and prevent the recurrence of self-injury.This study explored the predictors of persistence and cessation of non-suicidal selfinjury in adolescents,found an important influential role of self-concept,and provided a new perspective on interventions for self-injured adolescents by effectively improving positive self-concept using a focal resolution short-course treatment intervention.