The booklet contains pictures produced by the adolescents. Credit score: Picture replica
Adolescence is a time of intense emotional and social transformation when many younger individuals face important psychological challenges, together with social isolation and self-harm—the follow of deliberately harming oneself with out suicidal intent. It’s estimated that one in seven adolescents suffers from a psychological sickness, with round half of those circumstances starting earlier than the age of 14. As well as, it’s estimated that 14% of adolescents have self-harmed at the very least as soon as of their lives, utilizing this conduct as an try to deal with inner misery, comparable to despair, nervousness, or trauma.
This kind of conduct isn’t just an remoted symptom; it’s a reflection of deep struggling that instantly impacts the younger individual’s high quality of life. Self-injury can have an effect on vanity, interpersonal relationships, and faculty efficiency, and it will increase the chance of suicide.
Unsurprisingly, adolescent psychological well being has turn into a worldwide concern lately, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Research point out that signs of despair elevated by 26% and signs of hysteria elevated by round 10% amongst younger individuals as much as age 19 through the well being disaster. In Brazil, the variety of self-harm circumstances amongst younger individuals elevated by 21% between 2011 and 2022.
In 2018, earlier than the pandemic, Luiza Cesar Riani Costa, a psychologist after which a pupil on the Federal College of São Carlos (UFSCar) within the state of São Paulo, Brazil, carried out a scientific initiation mission. It aimed to know points associated to non-suicidal self-harm amongst younger individuals.
Particularly, it sought to know how adolescents who skilled this self-harm conceptualized the phenomenon and why it occurred. The outcomes revealed that adolescents seen self-harm as a way of assuaging emotional struggling, underscoring the significance of a welcoming surroundings to deal with psychological ache.
“At the time, self-harm was a relatively new phenomenon in Brazil, but it gained prominence after some social media challenges encouraged many teenagers to cut themselves. A state school in São Carlos, where we had projects, noticed an increase in cases and encouraged us to research the issue,” says Professor Diene Monique Carlos, who now works on the College of São Paulo (USP) on the Ribeirão Preto campus.
After her undergraduate analysis, Costa continued her research on self-harm amongst adolescents, throughout her grasp’s diploma on the identical college. The examine explored the that means of non-suicidal self-harm in better depth.
The analysis findings have been remodeled into the booklet “What relieves my pain: photos and experiences of adolescents,” which has been made out there digitally to varsities, well being providers, and professionals working with adolescents. The mission was additionally offered on the fifteenth Ibero-American Congress of Qualitative Analysis (CIAIQ2025) in Spain and printed in New Tendencies in Qualitative Analysis.
The origin of the booklet
To develop the booklet, Costa started a qualitative analysis mission that didn’t require a lot of members, because the intention was to realize a deeper understanding of the scenario. 9 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 who have been experiencing psychological misery, had a historical past of self-harm and had spontaneously volunteered to take part within the mission have been assessed.
One of many highlights was that the entire adolescents have been feminine, which was a coincidence since boys have been additionally invited to take part however confirmed no curiosity. “We noticed a strong gender issue present, so we came up with another project that focuses specifically on boys. Why don’t they seek help?” requested Professor Diene Carlos, the mission supervisor.
Costa started by asking the next query: “What relieves your pain?” She then requested the youngsters to reply utilizing pictures that they had taken, exhibiting different methods they might use to deal with troublesome conditions that trigger them ache, so long as they didn’t contain self-harm.
The analysis used the Photovoice methodology to perform this. Photovoice is a method broadly utilized in contexts of vulnerability through which pictures are used as a type of expression to handle delicate points. “It’s a methodology often used by researchers in situations where it’s difficult to talk about a certain subject,” Carlos explains.
The members had two weeks to {photograph} scenes that answered the query. On the finish of the interval, Costa obtained 50 pictures. The preliminary concept was to debate the pictures with the youngsters, however because of the pandemic, this was not doable (the interviews occurred between March and July of 2021).
For that reason, the fabric was analyzed individually. The pictures served as a place to begin for deeper reflection guided by questions comparable to: “What do you see in this photograph?” “What motivated you to take this photo?” “What does this image awaken in you?” and “How does this relate to self-harm?”
The pictures depicted scenes of nature, pets, and bodily actions, comparable to skateboarding and biking. Additionally they depicted moments of cooking, artwork (with drawings, music, and movies), affection, and spirituality. After a reflective evaluation, the youngsters got here up with the concept of collectively making a booklet to showcase the pictures and what they meant as a manner of drawing consideration to the problem and serving to different youngsters who may additionally be struggling.
“Contact with the girls revealed that what they were doing was more complex and profound than merely creating coping strategies. They were showing in a totally creative way what sustained them,” wrote the creator of the examine in a letter to the reader offered with the general public protection of her grasp’s diploma.
Based on Carlos, regardless of their particular person particularities, it was doable to establish widespread parts within the pictures produced by the youngsters when analyzing them: a concentrate on nature, the significance of emotional relationships, the presence of household, affection for animals, music, movies, and different types of creative expression.
“We found many similarities among the images, so we concluded that they could resonate with other teenagers. For us, this was the most beautiful moment of the research since the original idea wasn’t to have a booklet,” says the advisor.
The publication is on the market in Portuguese and English and has the potential to be an necessary, low-cost, therapeutic, and academic software, particularly because it makes use of accessible language that resonates with adolescents. “Self-harm is still very present in the lives of these young people as a way of alleviating pain and suffering. That’s why this tool can be used to explore other ways of alleviating this pain,” says Carlos.
Extra data:
Luiza Cesar Riani Costa et al, What Relieves My Ache”: Analysis Experiences By means of Photovoice With Adolescents With Psychological Issues, New Tendencies in Qualitative Analysis (2025). DOI: 10.36367/ntqr.21.1.2025.e1207
Quotation:
Self-harm in adolescence: Younger individuals report on methods to alleviate psychological struggling in booklet (2025, June 4)
retrieved 5 June 2025
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