Adolescence and self-injuries

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the current affairs and an invitation to think about worrying phenomena in youngsters: self-injuries or cuts in the arms in eight young adolescent patients. We try to figure out the underlying cause of such behavior, which is more common every day and reveals some characteristics of society. Sociocultural, individual and family changes are analyzed, showing possible connections among these instances, identity and self-injuries. We suggest that the difficulties in identity development may be related to practices such as self-injury or others, which are related to mentalization problems. In the sociocultural level we find a way to socialize in which subjective discomfort has increased, there is overabundance, mass consumption, and the traditional social institutions (family, school and religion) have failed. Youngsters do not know themselves nor their projects. This difficulty is accompanied by an individual's failure in mentalization capacities (name one's feelings), leading the suffering youngster to practices such as self-injuries, which become permanent. Finally, the particulars of family relationships are described: distance between parents and their offspring, with the life experiences of the former being less appreciated by their offspring while forming their own identity, this is, they are responsible of becoming the architects of their own identities. They are orphans without traditions, which are sources of identity and innovation; to know who we are we must know where we come from.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.