Adolescent Self-Harm

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses psychoanalytic concepts and their practical application in the adolescent stage of life. The paper examines self-harm from the perspective of psychoanalysis to see why adolescents otherwise considered normal sometimes exhibit this abnormal behavior. The paper identifies strategies to deal with these adolescents.

Outline:
Introduction
Hypotheses
Psychoanalytic Concepts

From the Paper:

"Aversion to pain is part of human nature and it is highly abnormal for anyone to relish being inflicted with bodily harm, but in the growing phenomenon called deliberate self-harm, people actually hurt themselves for reasons that baffle behavioral scientists. Most of those who engage in self-harm are young people and they do so by stopping short of killing themselves, which makes this particular behavior distinct from suicide. Unlike suicide, whose motivations have been long understood by experts as utter hopelessness and despair, there is no easy way to explain the psychodynamic of self-harm. Psychodynamic being the study of behavior as to motivation appears to flounder on self-harm, which has been described as one of the human behaviors "incredibly difficult to comprehend (Apter, 2002)." Thus, research has gone no further than setting the psychoanalytic concepts invoked by self-harm and establishing that this destructive behavior typically begins in early adolescence, which is around age 14, with the incidence seeming to peak between 16-25 years of age."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Adams, M.M. "Adolescent Self-Harm." MFC, Thustin CA,
• Apter, A. (2002). "Adolescent Suicide and Attempted Suicide." Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
• Best, R. (2006). "Deliberate Self-Harm in Adolescence: Report of a Research Project in some English Schools." Roehampton University.
• Clery, C. (1999). "The Psychodynamic and Systemic Approach to Self-Harm." APSA Rapport, Vol. 6 (3).
• CSP (2004). "A Closer Look at Self-Harm." Centre for Suicide Prevention,Canada.

More papers on Adolescent Self-Harm:

• Term Paper # 146320 : "Self-Harm Behaviors in Adolescents"
• Research Paper # 105680 : "Self-Harm in Adolescent Females"
• Term Paper # 146038 : "Self-Harm in Adolescents"

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