Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Among Adolescents

This paper proposed the application of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to adolescents who engage in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Several of the various functions that have been attributed to non-suicidal self-injury (such as affect regulation or interpersonal/systemic functions) can he conceptualized as a form of experiential avoidance, or the attempt to control or fix private events such as thoughts, feelings, sensations, or memories (Blackledge & Hayes, 2001). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) views experiential avoidance as the underlying and unified basis of many forms of pathology. The goal of ACT is to increase psychological flexibility in situations where experiential avoidance prevails. Thus, an ACT approach to self-injury would assist individuals in living in the moment with their internal experiences instead of using self-injury to avoid and alter them. A new approach to treating NSSI is important because current treatment approaches do not distinguish between NSSI and suicide attempts and often fail to find significant results with adolescents.;A literature review investigated differing theories and opinions regarding the definition and terminology of non-suicidal self-injury, how NSSI can be differentiated from suicide, prevalence and incidence, diagnoses and individual characteristics associated with self-injury, as well as current treatment approaches and their outcomes. Following this review of recent literature, a description of experiential avoidance, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and how it can apply to the functions of self-injury among adolescents was given in order to form the bedrock for program development. This dissertation then outlined a tailored treatment protocol for using ACT with adolescents who use self-injury as a form of coping. The protocol is based on recent research outcomes that support acceptance and movement toward valued directions as an emerging paradigm in the cognitive behavioral domain.