New paper out: Why Do People Harm Themselves?
Click here to view the full paperA new paper out from our lab, is now slated for publication in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment . Entitled "Explicit and Inferred Motives for Non-suicidal Self Injurious Acts and Urges in Borderline and Avoidant Personality Disorders", it was a major part of Avigal Snir’s dissertation – now submitted!!! – and was co-written with Reuma Gadassi, Kathy Berenson, Geraldine Downey, and Eshkol. Here's the summary paragraph of that paper:
The natural impulse to maintain physical integrity and to avoid pain (Dawkins, 1989) is part of the innate drive for self-preservation (Wilson, 1978). The motives for behaviors that contradict this basic principle need to be understood. Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a perplexing phenomenon that may have differing motives. The present study employed experience sampling methods (ESM) which inquired explicitly about the motives for NSSI, but also enabled a temporal examination of the antecedents/consequences of NSSI, these allowed us to infer other motives which were not explicitly endorsed.
Adults with borderline personality disorder (BPD), avoidant personality disorder (APD), or no psychopathology participated in a 3-week computerized diary study. We examined 5 classes of explicit motives for engaging in NSSI. Then we examined changes in affect, cognition, and behavior surrounding moments of NSSI acts/urges compared to control moments (i.e., without NSSI). We examined changes in five scales of inferred motives, designed to correspond to the five classes of explicit motives.
Whereas individuals reported primarily internal-oriented motives for NSSI, the examination of inferred motives revealed fluctuations in interpersonally-oriented scales surrounding NSSI acts and urges. This highlights the need to continue attending to interpersonal aspects of NSSI in research and in clinical practice. Additionally, NSSI urges, like acts, were followed by decline in affective/interpersonal distress (although in a delayed manner). Thus, interventions that build distress tolerance and enhance awareness for affective changes, and for antecedent/consequence patterns in NSSI, could help individuals resist the urge to self-injure.
Inferred motives for NSSI – Changes in Affective/Interpersonal states surrounding NSSI acts among individuals with BPD
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