Sociological Approaches to Self‐injury

This paper reviews the burgeoning sociological literature on non‐suicidal self‐injury, in which individuals intentionally harm themselves by cutting, burning, scratching, or smashing their body parts. We identify challenges to studying self‐injury, such as conflicting definitions and categorizations. Comparing self‐injury to other behaviors such as suicide, body modification, and self‐mutilation, we assert that non‐suicidal self‐injury deserves its own conceptual category. We explain how a critical sociological approach provides a valuable counterweight to medical and psychological studies of self‐injury. In particular, this paper advances the deviance perspective. Finally, we highlight how technology has allowed self‐injurers to build supportive communities in cyberspace, blurring the line between hidden and public acts. We conclude with suggestions for future directions in the study of self‐injury.