Family Life Education Series
"Youth self-harm behaviour - why?"

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Youth substance abuse is a form of self-harm behaviour, which includes cutting of wrist, banging of head against the wall and suicide. Youth suicide could not simply be explained in terms of their immaturity. In 2000, Hong Kong recorded about 915 suicide cases (1), and the figure for last year indicates that the suicide rate among the youth has not decreased. The seriousness of the matter has prompted the University of HK to set up a Centre for Suicides Research and Prevention by multi-disciplined professionals to address the problem. In this regard, parents certainly would like to learn how to guard against any outbreak of self-harm behaviour from their children. Professor Wong Chung-kwong of Positive Living United Services gives the following advice:

There are three important answers to this searching question: drive, lines of defence, and habits.

The drive to self-harm behaviour is emotion, not reason. Any negative emotions may lead to self-harm. The commonest of these emotions are sadness and fear. Sadness results from loss of a boyfriend or girlfriend or loss of opportunities such as a better education. Fear results from threat of being punished. It is important to keep in mind other negative emotions such as shame, guilt, loneliness, anger and jealousy. There have been quite a few cases of teenage suicide in which shame and guilt seemed clearly to have been the driving force (suicide notes saying how shameful and/or guilt-ridden the teenager felt about certain mistakes or about failure to perform well in examinations). It is also important to bear in mind that in most cases, the emotions are mixed. For example, sadness and jealousy because the teenager's lover has turned to someone else may lead to self-harm and harming others.

There are three "lines of defence", namely self, family and social circles. A person normally will attempt to solve his/her own problem. But when the attempt fails, the person will turn to his family, and in the case of youths, usually their parents. Should this second line of defence fail, the person will turn to friends and others, and in the case of youths, usually to teachers, school social workers and peers. If all three lines of defence fail, the person will likely feel trapped, helpless and even hopeless. Family support is particularly important to teenagers. The most important sign of failed family functioning is in communication. Teenagers no longer talk to their parents and parents feel puzzled and bitter about them.

It is also important to look at self-harm behaviour from the angle of habits. Self-harm behaviour, like all behaviours, readily becomes a habit. Some teenagers perform self-harm behaviour simply because they feel frustrated, unhappy or even just lonely and bored. In these cases, the self-harm behaviour has become a habit of letting out bad feelings.

It is important to approach self-harm behaviour as a communication issue. Normal communication failure is where the teenager is unable to talk about his bad feelings and problems or he feels he is not understood. Self-harm behaviour is a form of non-verbal communication, which can result in bad feelings and sense of helplessness and hopelessness. The proper response is thus to build rapport with these teenagers and re-establish normal and effective communication with them.

If you encounter any related problems with your children (or even yourselves), please don't hesitate to call your respective regional welfare office (all consultations are treated in total confidence).

HKI : 2804-1570

MAR : 2301-1670

KE : 2304-1400

KW : 2150-7988

NTN : 2673-5983

NTS : 2418-0050

(1): From Samaritan Befrienders. Statistics for 2001 has yet to be confirmed by Coroners Court.