Giving up self-injury:A comparison of everyday social and personal resources in past versus current self-injurers.

Self-injury represents a common yet perplexing set of behaviors, considered difficult to treat. The current study aimed to identify social and personal resources that may aid in cessation of self-injury. A community sample of 312 participants completed an online questionnaire. In line with Brown and Williams (20073. Brown , S. , & Williams , K. ( 2007 ). Past and recent deliberate self-harm: Emotion and coping strategy differences . Journal of Clinical Psychology , 63 ( 9 ), 791 Ð 803 . CrossRef, Web of Science ¨ View all references), we compared all self-injurers (current and past) (106, 34%) with those who had never self-injured (206, 66%), and then current (38, 12.2%) with past self-injurers (68, 21.8%). Overall, self-injurers reported significantly lower levels of perceived social support, social connectedness, resilience, self-esteem, and life satisfaction compared to those with no such history. Further analysis indicated that family support, self-esteem, resilience, and satisfaction with life were significantly better for past compared to current self-injurers (at the p < 0.01 level). Logistic regression suggested that self-injurers could be distinguished from non self-injurers on Self-esteem and Social Connectedness. A further logistic regression suggested that past self-injurers could be distinguished from current self-injurers by their level of Resilience. The research has important preventive and clinical implications.