Kniven i armen

Abstract
The object of this paper is a sociological exploration of the phenomenon of self-harming acts based on
seven qualitative interviews and six written descriptions from girls, who have been engaged in self-harming
activities, this being primarily skin-cutting. In the aim of avoiding to reduce the phenomenon to a matter of
individual problems or psychological defects, we examine the self-harming activities in relation to both the
individual structures of experience, and complex social structures. Hence the paper is an alternation be-
tween the individual reflections that arise from the empirical material, and sociological perspectives on soci-
ety in which the self-harming activities take place.
By drawing use of the phenomenological tradition, we seek to explore and capture some of the complex set
of meanings that surround the acts of self-harm. Our focus will be kept on the girls’ reconstruction of ex-
perience of concrete episodes of self-mutilation, which leads us to explore the emotions and thoughts, as
they emerge in the self-harming subject.
Among other things we discover that the subject comes into contact with feelings of pain, control and ex-
periences of flow during the act, which we explore with the help of D.B. Morris and C. Bloch. The empirical
material reveals a dimension of addiction in relation to the self-harming acts,which is put into perspective
with the work of A. Giddens. Different aspect of shame is outlined in the analysis and thrown light upon
with T. Scheff and J.M. Barbalet’s theories of shame in relation with social structure. With Goffmann’s
concept of stigma we elucidate that the wounds and scars can give rise to stigmatization of the self-harmer,
as they are discovered, but also that they can be seen as an attempt to gain attention and care.
Furthermore, we discuss self-mutilation in the light of the structures of expectations with which our culture
is imbued. By drawing on the work of L. Hammershøj and A. Honneth we explore the aspects of self-
realization, which seem to be a striking social claim today. On the basis of this claim we look into the self-
harming activities and put forward three ways, in which self-mutilation sociologically can be seen: As a
failed pathological project of self-realization, as an attempt of gaining recognition or as a way in which the
self-harming subject opposes the spreading discourse of self-realization.
By starting with an exploration of the emotions and experiences of the self-harming subject, and further
using the sociological imagination to display the multiplicity of the phenomenon, the aim of this paper is
hereby to grasp the phenomenon in sociological terms.
Enjoy the reading,
Anne Thit Zeuthen Heidam & Sophie Bo Schmidt
2