Making sense of self-harm : the cultural meaning and social context of non-suicidal self-injury

Making Sense of Self-Harm provides an alternative approach to understanding nonsuicidal self-injury; using Cultural Sociology to analyse it more as a practice than an illness and exploring it as a powerful cultural idiom of personal distress and social estrangement that is peculiarly resonant with the symbolic life of late-modern society. "Making Sense of Self-Harm provides an alternative examination of nonsuicidal self-injury. In contrast to more common psychiatric or psychological analyses this book uses Cultural Sociology and the conceptual insights of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias and Ludwig Wittgenstein to map the hidden meanings of self-harm and reveal it more as a kind of practice than an illness; a powerful cultural idiom of personal distress and social estrangement that is peculiarly resonant with the symbolic life of late-modern society. The book explores various texts that talk about self-harm and which have helped shape it as a social phenomenon, from medical discourses to popular media, and further traces its meanings through a number of in-depth interviews with people who self-harm, ultimately grounding an understanding of self-harm in our prevalent psychological and consumer cultures and coming to make sense of a phenomenon that so many have found profoundly disturbed and disturbing."-- Résumé de l'éditeur "Making Sense of Self-Harm provides an alternative examination of nonsuicidal self-injury. In contrast to more common psychiatric or psychological analyses this book uses Cultural Sociology and the conceptual insights of Michel Foucault, Norbert Elias and Ludwig Wittgenstein to map the hidden meanings of self-harm and reveal it more as a kind of practice than an illness; a powerful cultural idiom of personal distress and social estrangement that is peculiarly resonant with the symbolic life of late-modern society. The book explores various texts that talk about self-harm and which have helped shape it as a social phenomenon, from medical discourses to popular media, and further traces its meanings through a number of in-depth interviews with people who self-harm, ultimately grounding an understanding of self-harm in our prevalent psychological and consumer cultures and coming to make sense of a phenomenon that so many have found profoundly disturbed and disturbing."-- Provided by publisher Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-16 What is Self-harm?....Pages 17-51 The Problem of Good Understanding....Pages 52-84 The Ontological Axis....Pages 85-121 The Aetiological Axis....Pages 122-157 The Pathological Axis....Pages 158-192 The Belaboured Economy of Desire....Pages 193-213 Conclusion....Pages 214-217 Back Matter....Pages 219-242