Self Injurious Behavior Among Homeless Young Adults

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Self-mutilation or self-harm is defined as the act of deliberately harming the surface of one’s own body without having suicidal intentions. This would include the act of “cutting, stabbing, burning and scratching the skin” (Tyler, Melander, & Almazan, 2010). A person that chooses to mutilate themselves often does so in places on their body that can be easily hidden from others. There are many situations that would cause a person to harm themselves. A few of those are stress, clinical depression or substance abuse. Self- mutilation is used as a way of relieving tension. Cutting takes their mind off the pain inside and let’s them focus on the physical pain instead. Cutting is also used by a person that feels numb inside, it makes them feel alive. …show more content…

Also, the study was preformed to find out if “certain stigmatized statuses exacerbate the risk of self-mutilation beyond the social circumstances of being homeless” (Tyler et al. 2010). It was believed that the correlates of self-mutilation among the homeless would be different than the correlates of those that self -mutilate but are not homeless. The thinking seemed to be that a homeless person would not have the same problems as a person that did not have the same type of circumstance. Homeless people and people of the general population would differ in more ways than just the place they slept at night. They also believed that homeless individuals would suffer with additional problems because of their gender or sexual orientation. They thought these things combined with the homelessness would make a person more susceptible to …show more content…

144 of the young adults were homeless and 55 were housed. The people that were considered to be homeless not only lived on the streets, but also in homeless shelters or with friends. Some had run away from home and others were kicked out. “Homelessness is a situation that is very fluid and is not easily defined” (Tyler et al. 2010). The participants chosen were in between the ages of 19 and 26. The people conducting the interviews were people that had experience in working with at risk individuals and they all completed training before they were allowed to interview the subjects. Because the subjects were mostly homeless and would be hard to keep in contact will, they were interviewed only one time. The interviews were held in interview rooms, or quiet places like the corners in a fast food establishment or coffee shop. The participants were interviewed for no longer than an hour and when the interview was over they were give $25. The participants were also offered counseling and food services after the interviews were concluded. The participants were asked questions about their gender, sexual orientation, whether they were sexually abused, or neglected. There were also question that pertained to the participants mental state and whether they used drug occasionally or were addicted. Also, the types of drugs whether legal or illegal were

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