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

Self-Harm Across Cultures, with Dr. Marc Wilson

Episode Summary

Marc Wilson, PhD, from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand shares about cross-cultural representations of self-injury and self-harm.

Episode Notes

Are there countries, races, or ethnicities with higher or lower rates of self-injury?  How prevalent is NSSI among indigenous peoples, and what role does culture play in the form, function, and meaning of self-injury?  In this episode, Dr. Marc Wilson from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington in Aotearoa New Zealand shares about cross-cultural representations of self-injury and self-harm.  

Learn more about Dr. Wilson and his work at https://people.wgtn.ac.nz/Marc.Wilson. Below are links to some of the research referenced in this episode:

  1. Sansone, R. A., Wiederman, M. W., & Sansone, L.A. (1998). The Self-Harm Inventory (SHI): development of a scale for identifying self-destructive behaviors and borderline personality disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54(7), 973–983.
  2. Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2010). Measuring self-harm behavior with the Self-Harm Inventory. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 7(4), 16-20.
  3. Gratz, K. L. (2001). Measurement of deliberate self-harm: Preliminary data on the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 23(4), 253-263.
  4. Monto, M. A., McRee, N., & Deryck, F. S. (2018). Nonsuicidal self-injury among a representative sample of US adolescents, 2015. American Journal of Public Health, 108, 1042-1048.
  5. Favazza, A. R. (2011). Bodies under siege: Self-mutilation, nonsuicidal self-injury, and body modification in culture and psychiatry (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  6. Wilson, M. S. (2024). Cross-cultural representations of nonsuicidal self-injury. In E. E. Lloyd-Richardson, I. Baetens, & J. Whitlock (Eds.), The handbook of nonsuicidal self-injury (pp. 167-186). Oxford University Press.
  7. Westers, N. J. (2024). Cultural interpretations of nonsuicidal self-injury and suicide: Insights from around the world. Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29(4). 

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."