Self-harm and fiction
Self-Harm and fiction is a project led by Veronica Heney, our research lead. The project explores the representation of self-harm in fiction and how this shapes the way we understand experiences of self-harm in the world - whether or own or another’s.
Self-harm is a very common experience, but is only rarely represented in fiction, such as in books, TV shows, and films. Moreover, where self-harm is present in fiction, the depiction is often stereotypical or limited. These failings are important because fiction can shape how people understand self-harm, and therefore how they respond to people who self-harm.
From 2018-2022 Veronica Heney conducted a PhD research project, exploring self-harm in fiction. This research paid particular attention to how people with experience of self-harm felt about how it was depicted - the project included interviews with people who had self-harmed. Veronica then brought those interviews together with close readings of fiction to think about how different stories - from Girl Interrupted to A Little Life - framed, understood, and narrated self-harm.
If you’d like to learn more about the project or self-harm in fiction, you can read Veronica’s full PhD thesis here.
At the end of her PhD project, Veronica and Make Space collaborated on some workshops to produce outputs from the research. These workshops brought together members of the project's advisory group, interview participants, and other stakeholders in grassroots care for people who self-harm. Together we discussed the project's findings, what was important to communicate to a wider audience, and who needed to hear about them. As a result of this work we developed two resources - one for creators’ thinking about writing about self-harm, and another for those who care for people who self-harm.
Creators' Guide
Aimed writers and creators who are thinking about representing self-harm, the Creators’ Guide gives some information about the sort of representation that people who self-harm found particularly helpful, and it gives creators some things to think about as they plan their writing.
Reading Guide
This resource is aimed at those who care for people who self-harm, for instance healthcare professionals, teachers, family, and friends. It encourages readers think about how the fiction they have read may have shaped their approach to self-harm, and how fiction might be useful in starting conversations around self-harm.
Self-Harm and fiction: Reading list
Alongside the resources above, Veronica has written multiple pieces exploring the themes in the research. You can find them here:
Shame and self-harm: Association and Avoidance (2021) - Shame and Medicine Blog
Self-harm: Response and Reaction (2020) - Cost of Living Blog
Refusing resolution: Narratives of self-harm (2019) - The Polyphony
The interpretive difficulties of self-harm in “Sharp Objects” (2018) - Cost of Living Blog
“For all that the association of shame with self-harm might, from a distance, seem self-evident, upon closer examination there were myriad ways in which shame interacted with self-harm both in lives and in texts”
Narratives of Self-Harm
Veronica talks about her research at a Time to Change event held on World Mental Health Day in 2019.