Fictional Representations of Self-Harm: Semi-structured Interviews, 2019-2020

Heney, Veronica (2025). Fictional Representations of Self-Harm: Semi-structured Interviews, 2019-2020. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857000

Self-harm is not frequently represented in books, TV, and films. It is possible that this may impact the way people talk about self-harm and how people seek help or support. The project aims to explore what representations are currently available to individuals who self-harm. It also examines how individuals who self-harm feel these representations impact the way they understand their own experiences and the way they discuss them with others. The project consists of an interview study and subsequent analysis by the researcher of fictional texts.

Data description (abstract)

This data was collected as part of a study exploring fictional representations of self-harm, and the way these representations were experienced and understood by people who have self-harmed. For the purposes of this study self-harm was defined as “an act, normally a repeated, habitual act, which in some way causes direct harm to the body but one where the focus and purpose of the act is this harm itself and not some other goal".

The study responded to a tendency within research and commentary to assume or estimate the effects, benefits, or harms of fictional representation, and to prioritise the perspective of people who do not self-harm in interpreting its fictional representation. It also explored the significance of fiction in shaping personal understandings of self-harm, and public or social conversations around self-harm.
To do this, the study involved semi-structured qualitative interviews with people with experience of self-harm within the UK. The interviews discussed what fictional representations of self-harm participants had encountered, what they felt and thought about those depictions and how they had impacted them, and what sorts of depictions of self-harm they would like to see. They also discussed fictional representations that in some way seemed reminiscent of self-harm, without actually depicting it. Participants were also asked whether and how they talked about representations of self-harm with friends and family.

Participants discussed wide ranging topics, including instances where they felt that they identified with self-harming characters in ways that were very meaningful, instances where self-harm was poorly or stereotypically represented and used for shock valour, and dominant trends within fictional representations such the tendency for self-harming characters to recover by the end.

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