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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1449110

The Emotional Surge: In-depth Qualitative Exploration of Rumination and Emotional Turbulence in Non-suicidal Self-Injurers Authors

Provisionally accepted
Soulat Khan Soulat Khan *Tasnim Rehna Tasnim Rehna
  • National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is an emerging pathological condition prevalent in emerging adults that causes significant distress and hinders daily life functioning. The surging rate of NSSI highlights it as a crucial area that needs clinical attention. For devising interventions to manage NSSI, it is important to identify the factors leading to NSSI and hindering the pathway towards NSSI. Therefore, the current study aims to explore emotional and cognitive factors to have a holistic understanding of NSSI in emerging adults in the Pakistani context. For this purpose, a qualitative study with in-depth semi-structured interviews has been conducted with N= 10 self-injurers with a mean age of 22.2 years. Individuals who self-injured at least five times in the past year without intention of suicide were recruited through purposeful sampling. For inflicting self-injury, the arm was found to be the most common part of the body. Moreover, the most frequently used method for NSSI was cutting. Braun and Clark (2019) reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews. Three themes of 'emotional turbulence', 'low distress tolerance', and 'rumination', and nine subthemes emerged indicating the role of these factors in performing NSSI and its maintenance. The emotional and cognitive factors involved in evolving NSSI in Pakistani emerging adults identified by this research will aid in treatment planning and choosing the appropriate methods for eradicating NSSI.

    Keywords: Non-suicidal self-injury, Emerging adults, qualitative study, rumination, distress tolerance, emotional turbulence, Negative emotions

    Received: 14 Jun 2024; Accepted: 03 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Khan and Rehna. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Soulat Khan, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.