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Abstract
Photographs of self-injury (SI) on the Internet, according to the literature and the wider media, spread and encourage self-destructive behaviour, although very little is known about these effects. A group of self-injurers was questioned about the reasons for producing and looking at photos of SI, and were asked about their reaction to exposure of them. The informants confirmed that the effects were alleviating rather than the opposite, and the production of the images was often related to notions about memory and proof. To publish them was apprehended as a way of sharing experiences with others and to give and/or receive help. Photographs of self-injuries were described as one resource of a SI community culture. Informants often emphasised that the outcome of watching these photos varies due to individual and situational differences. The results of the study are inconsistent with unfounded presumptions about photographs of SI, which are replaced with a nuanced and contradictory picture.
Notes
1. The term self-injury is an often used term in literature to designate various kinds of self-inflicted violence. Other terms often used are self-harm and self-mutilation. As these terms have similar or identical definition, with differences that are of minor importance here, self-injury will be used throughout the article to avoid confusion.
2. See Favazza (Citation1987/1996), who represents this dominating articulation on SI; see also Shaw (Citation2002) for a brief introduction with a feminist perspective on the articulations of SI in psychiatric, psychological and research discourses during the twentieth century.
3. I use profession as a generic term for different kinds of occupational groups, such as psychiatrists and health care workers, who come into contact with and treat self-injurers.
4. See Sternudd (2008, 2010, 2011) for presentation and analysis of the visual aspects of SI-photos.
5. The study followed Swedish laws on ethical considerations in research that involves living persons (see for instance Swedish Law 1998:204; 2003:460, Governments proposition 2007/08:44); it also took into account the Swedish Research Council's four important rules: the demand for information, the demand for consent, the demand for confidentiality and the demand for right of use (Vetenskapsrådet n. d.).
6. The result of a study by psychologist E. F. Gross shows that adolescents seldom pretend to be somebody else. If they cheated it was most likely to do with their age, to which they added a few years (Citation2004, p. 643).
7. This division follows to some extent those drawn up by the Swedish anthropologist Anna Johansson in her dissertation. Johansson's themes consisted of (1) body, emotion and the act of self-injury; (2) help-seeking and the importance of talk; (3) credibility, authenticity and cultural belonging; (4) self-harming patient and relation to psychiatry (Johansson Citation2010, p. 36, my translation).
8. I use questionnaire technical terminology as suggested in May (Citation2001, pp. 97–102).
9. See, for example, Hawton et al. (Citation2002).
10. I have chosen not to use their nickname to secure their anonymity in relation to other members of the community.
11. Throughout the article, the language irregularities are not commented upon (with sic) or corrected.
12. I have previously been discussing the visual similarity between many SI-photos and clinical photographs (Sternudd 2011, p. 87) and some statements lead in the same direction.
