Wounding to heal: the role of the body in self-cutting

Abstract

This paper offers an in-depth phenomenological exploration of the self-cutting experience and the meanings of the gesture, the wound, and the resulting scar.

The phenomenon of self-cutting lends itself to qualitative questions. To address these questions, six female self-cutters were interviewed. Their audiotaped responses were analysed according to the phenomenological method of data analysis (Giorgi, 1975). The purpose of such research is to explicate the structure of a phenomenon from the descriptions of individuals who experience it. By including all that was common across participants' situated structures, the general structural description or essential meaning of the phenomenon was reached. Results revealed that ‘bodily mineness’, pain, despair, and competence all factor into the embodied nature of self-cutting. The act of self-cutting pulls the individual together while simultaneously tearing her apart with its self-destructive, shaming, and addictive consequences. Nevertheless, findings reveal how ‘wounding to heal’ is the cutter's way of coping.

Key words:

• bodily mineness
• embodiment
• emotional pain
• existential phenomenology
• self-cutting
• self-injury
• self-mutilation