O corpo adolescente autolesado: como os autores da autolesão não suicida e seus familiares percebem esse fenômeno

Abstract

Adolescence, between 10 and 19 years, is characterized by a period that demands a mental reorganization in the face of many transformations experienced in this phase. The adolescent is faced with the difficulty of dealing with them, causing internal conflicts that subject him to practice actions that compromise his physical integrity, such as non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). NSSI is defined as a repetitive behavior which causes superficial and painful on the body surface. The aim of the study was to understand how teenagers who practice non-suicidal self-harm, attended by a Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Care Center, and their relatives, decode their bodies and what meanings do they assign to the self-harm practice. This is a qualitative, exploratory study, developed between February and March 2022. A semi-structured and in-depth interview, a sociodemographic form to characterize the participants and a ludic instrument of illustration were used. Four teenagers and three relatives participated. Adolescents reported their self-injurious experiences and feelings attached to them, as fury, anxiety, loneliness, fear, relief and suffering demonstration, guilt and shame and meant the experience in the family and social context. They expressed ambivalence about their bodies' perception, considering them as valuable and delicate and the desire to feel the cut, to use the body as a vehicle for their speech, even if it is violated. Their relatives understood the NSSI as a way of regulating emotions and expressed concerns and sadness for the action, in addition to the feeling of inability to help the adolescent. This study contributed to the understanding non-suicidal self-harm practice from the adolescents and their relatives perspective, and how they relate it to their bodies, producing contradictions that reflect ambivalences of their emotions, in the face of impaired Symbolisation. This study adds to the scientific understanding of NSSI when it captures, in addition to the self-injury authors, the perception of their parents and when it apprehends the relationship between them and their own body as events associated with self-injury.