Braving big emotions: reducing the incidence of self-harm in our young people
Many of our country’s youth self-harm as a way of dealing with overwhelming emotions. Dr Kealagh Robinson from Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University will explore how we can better support young people as they learn strategies to manage unwanted feelings
Published on 7 Whiringa-ā-rangi November 2024
One in four young people in Aotearoa New Zealand report deliberately injuring themselves – not to end their lives, but instead to cope with overwhelming emotions. Youth who self-harm have poorer mental health than their peers, are more likely to develop new instances of mental illness in the future, and are at increased risk of subsequent suicidal thoughts and behaviours. To reduce the frequency of self-harm and mental illness in youth, we need to support them to develop effective strategies to manage their emotions.
How can we better support young people who are learning how to deal with intense, disruptive emotions? Psychologists have shown that our beliefs about emotions, including how much control we have over them and how useful they are, shape our strategies when it comes to managing them. Tamariki learn many of these emotion beliefs at home from their whānau. In this Marsden Fast-Start research, Dr Robinson and her team will investigate just how young people’s beliefs about emotion influence how they cope with strong feelings, and how this is shaped by their whānau. They will survey whānau and taiohi youth who self-harm as well as those who do not to understand how intergenerational learning might influence the likelihood of self-harming behaviours.
This research will answer fundamental questions about personal and social strategies that help us navigate a critical period of human development. Unravelling the influence of whānau on adolescent self-harm will also inform interventions to reduce its incidence and promote healthy coping mechanisms in our tamariki.