title: Inviting pain? Pain, dualism and embodiment in narratives of self-injury.
abstract: The role of pain in the practice of self-injury is not straightforward. Existing accounts suggest that self-injury does not cause 'physical' pain, however self-injury is also said to alleviate 'emotional' pain by inflicting 'physical' pain. This article explores these tensions using sociological theories regarding the socio-cultural and subjective nature of pain. Analysis derives from in-depth, life-story interviews carried out in the UK with people who had self-injured. Findings contribute to on-going debates within social science regarding the nature of pain. Participants' narratives about pain and self-injury both drew on and challenged dualistic models of embodiment. I suggest that self-injury offers a unique case on which to extend existing theoretical work, which has tended to focus on pain as an unwanted and uninvited entity. In contrast, accounts of self-injury can feature pain as a central aspect of the practice, voluntarily invited into lived experience.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh. a.chandler@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chandler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D063545:Personal Narratives as Topic; D012649:Self Concept; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult