Amy Chandler

Self-injury as Embodied Emotion Work: Managing Rationality, Emotions and Bodies

Drawing on narrative research conducted in the UK about self-injury and embodiment, this article presents a novel sociological analysis of self-injury, utilizing the concept of emotion work. By focusing explicitly on embodied methods of ‘doing’ emotion work, the article highlights the under-recognized importance of examining the practical, corporeal practices that can be involved in emotion work. I reflect on the sociological and theoretical significance of examining self-injury as embodied emotion work – both as an analytic concept and as a narrative resource.

Narrating the self-injured body

Illness narratives have traditionally been used as a conceptual tool for exploring experiences of chronic illness or disease. In this paper, I suggest that Franks typology of illness narratives (chaos, restitution and quest) also offers an illuminating approach to analysing accounts of self-injury, demonstrating the diverse ways in which self-injury is practiced, experienced and narrated. Drawing on 24 narrative interviews with 12 people who had self-injured, I focus on participants’ accounts of their self-injured bodies. The approach is phenomenological, and concerned with talk about the experience of living with and in a body that has been marked by self-injury. Thus, the act of self-injury is not the sole focus, and particular attention is paid to accounts of the bodily aftermath: scars, marks and wounds. Scars left by self-injury can be seen as communicative, and the analysis developed here demonstrates some of the various ways that these marks may be read. Attending to these diverse narratives can contribute to the provision of compassionate, non-judgemental care for patients who have self-injured. Further, highlighting the existence of different ways of narrating the self-injured body may offer an optimistic resource for people who have self-injured.

Mother’s little helper? Contrasting accounts of benzodiazepine and methadone use among drug-dependent parents in the UK

Abstract Aims: To explore the ways in which opioid-dependent parents accounted for their use of opioids and benzodiazepines during and after pregnancy. Methods: Longitudinal qualitative interviews [n = 45] with 19 opioid-dependent adults recruited in Scotland, UK, were held during the antenatal and post-natal period. Interviews focused on parenting and parenting support within the context of problem drug use and were analysed using a narrative informed, thematic analysis. Findings: The majority of participants described using benzodiazepines in addition to opioids. Almost all indicated a desire to stop or reduce opioid use, whereas cessation or reduction of benzodiazepines was rarely prioritised. In stark contrast to opioid dependence, benzodiazepine dependence was portrayed as unproblematic, therapeutic and acceptable in the context of family life. Whereas opioid dependence was framed as stigmatising, benzodiazepine use and dependence was normalised. An exception was benzodiazepine use by men which was occasionally associated with aggression and domestic abuse. Conclusions: Drug-dependent parents attach different meanings to opioid and benzodiazepine use and dependence in the context of parenthood. Divergent meanings, and stigma, may impact on stated commitment to stability or recovery from dependent drug-use. Attention should be paid to the way in which policy and practice regarding OST and benzodiazepines reflects this divergence.

Self-Injury, medicine and society: authentic bodies

This chapteSelf-injury, Medicine and Society represents an attempt to move past a position of shock and horror, towards one of intellectual and appreciative engagement with the practice of self-injury, and the social and cultural contexts in which it takes place and is constituted as a phenomena. Such an orientation involves not just attempting to understand self-injury from the perspective of those practicing it, but also to examine how self-injury is understood more broadly. To ask what cultural – including clinical – narratives and scripts people who self-injure draw upon to explain, or justify, their actions. A running theme, introduced here and running throughout the book, is that self-injury resists easy categorisation. At the same time, there have been, and continue to be, significant attempts to fix the meanings of self-injury, and these are critically explored.

Seeking secrecy: A qualitative study of younger adolescents’ accounts of self-harm

Young people who self-harm face challenges in seeking help, and there is a lack of qualitative research with under 16s despite rates of self-harm being high and help-seeking low. Data were collected from 122 young people aged 13–26 years, 108 of whom were aged 13–16 years, through multiple methods. This included six focus group discussions with 33 young people who had limited experience of self-harm; in-depth interviews with five people who had self-harmed and a qualitative online survey completed by 88 young people who had self-harmed. The analysis was thematic. Participants articulated views which could inhibit help-seeking: Young people provided strong negative judgements about ‘attention-seeking’ as a motive for self-harm, while ‘private’ self-harm was valorized. Talking to others about self-harm was identified as beneficial, but it was unclear how possible this would be, if self-harm must also be kept ‘secret’. Findings suggest that framing self-harm as private and secretive may be counterproductive.

Book review essay: anthropologies of addiction

Social scientific perspectives have a long history of offering unique and important insights into the social, cultural and economic features which shape understandings, meanings and practices relat...

Crisis, what crisis? A feminist analysis of discourse on masculinities and suicide

ABSTRACT High male suicide rates are often constructed as evidence for an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity’. Conversely, ‘crisis of masculinity’ has been used to explain differential rates of male and female suicide in the UK (and elsewhere). We analyse three public cases where male suicide and ‘masculinity-crisis’ discourse are employed together. Our feminist analysis demonstrates that ‘crisis talk’ and male suicide are addressed in divergent ways. We therefore distinguish between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ crisis narratives. Conservative narratives position high male suicide rates as a pernicious outcome of ‘threats’ to traditional gender roles and norms, suggesting the solution is to return to them. Contrastingly, progressive crisis accounts use male suicide to demonstrate that existing gender norms harm men as well as women and argue they should be altered to address male suicide. Conservative narratives often map on to anti-feminist politics, whereas progressive accounts reflect aspects of feminism. There is no neat feminist/anti-feminist distinction, however, as postfeminist ideas are also evident. We argue that, overall, each of the articulations of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ as evidenced by high rates of male suicide reinforces problematic gender politics. Further, in reifying simplistic, dualistic models of gender, they may ultimately constrain efforts to reduce suicide.