The Tender Cut : Inside the Hidden World of Self-Injury / / Patricia A. Adler, Peter Adler

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910781458803321
• Autore: Adler Patricia A.
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York, NY : , : New York University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• ISBN: 0-8147-0541-3
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (265 p.)
• Disciplina: 362.1968582
• Soggetti: Stress, Psychological - psychology; Social Isolation - psychology; Social Environment; Adaptation, Psychological; Self-Injurious Behavior - psychology; Stress (Psychology); Social isolation; Adaptability (Psychology); Self-injurious behavior
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Literature and Population -- 3 Studying Self-Injury -- 4 Becoming a Self-Injurer -- 5 The Phenomenology of the Cut -- 6 Loners in the Social World -- 7 Colleagues in the Cyber World -- 8 Self-Injury Communities -- 9 Self-Injury Relationships -- 10 The Social Transformation of Self-Injury -- 11 Careers in Self-Injury -- 12 Understanding Self-Injury -- Notes -- References -- Index -- About the Authors
• Sommario/riassunto: Cutting, burning, branding, and bone-breaking are all types of self-injury, or the deliberate, non-suicidal destruction of one’s own body tissue, a practice that emerged from obscurity in the 1990's and spread dramatically as a typical behavior among adolescents. Long considered a suicidal gesture, The Tender Cut argues instead that self-injury is ; often a coping mechanism, a form of teenage angst, an expression of group membership, and a type of rebellion, converting unbearable emotional pain into manageable physical pain. Based on the largest, qualitative, non-clinical population of self-injurers ever gathered, noted ethnographers Patricia and Peter Adler draw on 150 interviews with self-injurers from all over the world, along with 30,000-40,000 internet posts in chat rooms and communiqués. Their 10-year longitudinal research follows the practice of self-injury from its early days when people engaged in it alone and did not know others, to the present, where a subculture has formed via cyberspace that shares similar norms, values, lore, vocabulary, and interests. An important portrait of a troubling behavior, The Tender Cut illuminates the meaning of self-injury in the 21st century, its effects on current and former users, and its future as a practice for self-discovery or a cry for help.