Psychological and ethological approach in the study of self-harming behavior

Abstract

In this paper, self-injurious behavior in humans and higher animals is considered from the ethological and psychological approaches. The analysis of pathopsychological disorders and disorders from the point of view of ethological psychiatry (psychology) allows us to understand the nature, pathogenesis, and mechanisms of behavioral patterns and pantomimics in patients with borderline and psychiatric disorders. Self-traumatization can be observed in epilepsy, autism, mental retardation, and in accentuated and neurotic adolescents. According to the author's team, damage to the body and skin is a manifestation of instinctual response. Physical auto-aggression satisfies the realization of the aggressive instinct, is reinforced by opioid pleasure from pain, and is realized by limiting direct response to a negative stimulus. The authors carried out a comparative analysis of pantomimics of of physical autoaggression (self-injury) of 15 adolescents with psychological traumas, 15 children with mental dysontogenesis and 12 experimental monkeys (javan macaques and rhesus macaques). The results of the study showed that experimental primates redirected aggression to their own body and limbs under conditions of an obstacle to the motivation to attack. Adolescents, in response to the stressor, insected their skin with sharp and stabbing objects. Children with psycho-verbal disorders illustrated prima facie forms of self-harm in response to a limiting and repulsive stimulus. The identified pantomimic acts of physical autoaggression in experimental monkeys, children with mental developmental disorders, and adolescents with psychotraumatic experiences show the commonality and species-specificity of the nonverbal pattern of self-injury. In humans and primates in pantomimic production homologs of autoaggressive patterns in nonverbal production are found.