Analysis of Family Contexts Leading to Self-Harm among Female Students in Yazd

The family traditionally has special supportive care functions; However, in recent times, this social institution, along with increasing the fluidity of public culture, has faced significant functional challenges. Among them is the inability of the family to control adolescents formally and informally, which results in general abnormalities such as self-harm. This study aimed to investigate the family contexts leading to self-harm among female students in Yazd.

 This research was done by using a qualitative approach and the underlying theory method. Twenty-three high school girls in Yazd were selected by theoretical sampling method. They were in-depth interviewed about self-harm in the context of family issues. Until the data saturation, the theoretical sampling process continued. 

The data were analyzed by the open, axial, and selective coding method and presented as storylines including twenty-six main categories and one core category and paradigm model. Results showed that family time-space separation is mainly created by some agents including emotional/financial deficit, losing father, and family anomie by the second marriage, analogy humiliation, lived experience of punishment and injury, and the heritage of self-harm and consumption. Adolescent girls are choosing different strategies for this matter including comprehensive secrecy, dual behaviors in home and school, conventional show-off, and self-harm. These strategies can cause consequences such as the new family utopia, emotional separation from parents, persistent frustration, and trauma.

Family time-space separation has led to a problematic situation in which families lost their functions and capability of making positive change. In other words, there is no ability to solve problems from existing paths, or especially from prior and traditional paths. As a result, smart intervention measures must be taken in such families.