Reflections on research with self-harm self-help groups

Abstract

Self-harm remains an area where misconceptions and assumptions continue to prevail, with many people who self-harm reporting feelings of shame, guilt and stigma. Frustration with the behaviourist models that tend to dominate the management of self-harm in statutory services has contributed to the development of self-harm self-help groups, by those with direct experience, as a viable alternative form of support. However, due to concerns some professionals have raised about the safety and value of self-harm self-help groups they largely occupy a marginal position, as a viable source of informal support. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to reflect upon some of the challenges we faced when undertaking research with self-harm self-help groups. Our reflections question the uncritically positioning of certain groups as marginal and suggest that a more nuanced interpretation is required, to avoid simply continuing to position groups of people as being on the margins.Keywords: self-harm; self-help groups; stigma; hard to reach; marginal; reflections