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Qualitative Health Research
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From Feeling Too Little and Too Much, to Feeling More and Less? A Nonparadoxical Theory of the Functions of Self-Harm

Outi Horne

SANE (UK), London, United Kingdom

Emese Csipke

Kings College, London, United Kingdom

It is widely agreed that one of the functions of self-harm by cutting or burning the body is to regulate emotion. There is an apparent paradox in the emotion-regulative function of self-harm: some people are using self-harm to both increase and decrease affect. The aim of this study, which followed the principles of the grounded theory approach, was to generate a paradox-free theory of the functions of self-harm that is of immediate relevance to the participants themselves, who are often confused about the behavior and the experiences preceding it. We found that "feeling too little" and "feeling too much" share characteristics in three categories of experience: emotional awareness, sense of self/reality, and body-based experience. We explain the functions of self-harm in terms of body-based experience: Self-harm resolves a state of psychosomatic suspension and increases the extent to which the body is involved in the experience of emotion.

Key Words: behavior • embodiment/bodily experiences • emotion work • mental health and illness • self • self-harm

Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 19, No. 5, 655-667 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1049732309334249
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