Navigating Emotions: The Role of Self-Talk in Preventing Adolescent Self-Injury

Abstract

As a kind of mental disorder, self-injury behavior is prevalent among adolescents all over the world. This behavior results from the interplay of environmental factors (e.g., family dynamics, peer relationships, adverse life events), neurobiological factors linked to genetics, and epigenetic influences. Self-talk is a bridge connecting individual self-consciousness and external behavior, which can plan, monitor, and guide their external behavior. Using emotion as a mediating variable, we explored the relationship between self-talk and self-injury, and discussed that positive self-talk can reduce negative emotions, focus attention, and increase psychological distance, so as to resist the negative effects of self-consumption and enhance self-control, and then reduce pathological impulsive self-injury. Therefore, this review suggests that self-talk may promote individual mental health and reduce individual self-harming behavior.