The thematic tree of the main themes and subthemes addressed by the participants
| Themes and subthemes | Frequency | Case | Examples of verbatim |
|---|---|---|---|
| Context of NSSI | |||
| Environmental | 8 | 6 | “I started doing it when I was… 18 years old I think. Uh, maybe 17. Uh… After a hard break up” |
| Psychiatric | 6 | 7 | “I had anorexia, bulimia when I was young and uh let’s say it was the second step” |
| Similarities with addictive behavior | |||
| Tolerance | 2 | 2 | “The more we do it, the less it hurts, the more, inevitably, it gets bigger” |
| Craving | 11 | 5 | “I have this irrepressible need to do it” |
| Conflict | 7 | 6 | “There’re plenty times, plenty times where I want to do it but I try to stop myself but I can’t” |
| Withdrawal | 3 | 1 | “It’s like a withdrawal” |
| NSSI functions | |||
| Intrapersonal | |||
| Emotion regulation | |||
| Distraction of attention | 12 | 8 | “Something to make me think of something else or…” |
| Emotion suppression | 7 | 7 | “It’s a bit of a short circuit…to not feel emotion anymore” |
| Emotional control | 13 | 7 | “A need for, control, to regain control” |
| Exteriorization of suffering | 21 | 7 | “I got used to doing as a thing to externalize” |
| Dissociation | 3 | 3 | “Being far away of everything, being disconnected” |
| Lack of ER strategies | 10 | 8 | “Want to get out of distress but not be able to and not know how to do it otherwise that self-injure” |
| Emotional relief | 14 | 8 | “We really have the impression of a shot of I don’t know what hormone“ |
| Emotional acceptance | 3 | 2 | “And it’s also to accept my emotions” |
| Induce positive emotion | 8 | 5 | “The dopamine shot, it gave me this feeling of being high” |
| Self-punishment | 10 | 7 | “To punish me too, where I suddenly felt guilty about something and I thought, go, my way to punish myself” |
| Be active | 6 | 4 | “And uh.. And I wouldn’t know how to say it but it was a way of, of doing an action” |
| Interpersonal | |||
| Attention seeking | 11 | 5 | “I think in hindsight in real life it was maybe for a need of attention, that I did this” |
| Affection seeking | 5 | 2 | “Because here I was lacking affection” |
| Being recognized | 9 | 4 | “You seek recognition” |
| Emotion sequence of NSSI | |||
| Being overwhelmed by negative and positive emotions | 25 | 10 | “It kind of happened to me at times when I explode, it’s really that the emotions overflow” |
| Relief | 13 | 10 | “It’s like I unload a load, I say to myself it’s okay, the crisis has passed now I feel soothed” |
| Feeling guilty and ashamed | 17 | 11 | “First, shame. That’s for sure because, uh, you can’t show it. Guilt because I regret it” |
Frequency: number of times the code appeared in the interviews. Case: number of interviews out of 12 in which the code appeared. NSSI, non-suicidal self-injury; ER, emotion regulation