The Psychology of Self-Injury: Exploring Self-Harm & Mental Health

Did Self-Injury Increase During the COVID-19 Lockdown?, with Dr. Ruth Tatnell

Episode Summary

Ruth Tatnell, PhD, from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia describes how the COVID-19 pandemic and first lockdown affected rates of self-injury and self-harm.

Episode Notes

Early in the pandemic there was a lot of talk about how the initial lockdown and stay-at-home orders would affect people’s mental health, including risk for suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). In this episode, Dr. Ruth Tatnell answers questions about the pandemic's effects on rates of self-injury: Did the initial lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic increase self-injury urges and behaviors like many people thought would happen? And do we know if self-harm has increased, decreased, or stayed the same since the first lockdown of the pandemic?

Learn more about Dr. Tatnell and her work at Deakin University here, and connect with her on LinkedIn here. Below is her publication discussed in this month's episode as well as additional articles referenced in our interview:

1. Tatnell, R., Terhaag, S., & Melvin, G. (2023). Covid-19 lockdown and non-suicidal self-injury: A Mixed methods analysis of NSSI during Australia's national lockdown. Archives of Suicide Research. Online ahead of print.
2. Tanaka, T., & Okamoto, S. (2021). Increase in suicide following an initial decline during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(2), 229–238.
3. Read about the Harvard Happiness Study published in The Atlantic here. 
4. Read about the Cigna loneliness study here and their tips for addressing loneliness here.

Follow Dr. Westers on Instagram and Twitter (@DocWesters). To join ISSS, visit itriples.org and follow ISSS on Facebook and Twitter (@ITripleS).

The Psychology of Self-Injury podcast has been rated #5 by Feedspot in their "Best 20 Clinical Psychology Podcasts" and by Welp Magazine in their "20 Best Injury Podcasts."