Invalidation During The Teenage Years Increases The Risk Of Self-Harm In Young People

The teenager years can be a particularly trying and difficult time in life. Now, recent findings show that invalidation from a family member or peers can potentially determine whether or not a teenager may hurt themselves, based on a new study conducted by researchers at Brown University and Butler Hospital.

For the study, researchers examined 99 hospitalized teens out of concern about suicide risk and found that that a high perception of family invalidation--or lack of acceptatnce--often predicted future suicide events among boys; this was also indicative of self harm, such as cutting behaviors, among teens in general.

Researchers studied those admitted to a psychiatric facility because they had tried to kill themselves or presented a serious risk of doing so, for six months of follow-up. Along the way they assessed the teens' sense of family and peer invalidation as well as other demographic and psychiatric data. They also tracked whether the teens (or their parents) reported new suicide attempts or related events by the teen, or whether the teen was engaging in cutting or other forms of self-harm.

In some cases, as with peers, that sense of invalidation could come from being bullied, but it could also be more subtle. In the case of family, for example, a teen who is gay may feel a strong degree of invalidation if he or she perceives that parents would either disapprove or be disappointed upon finding out, said lead study author Shirley Yen, associate professor of psychiatry and human behavior in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

Assessing family invalidation involved asking questions such as, "Were there times when you did not feel accepted by your family? Or that you could not express your true thoughts and feelings? Or that if you did express your thoughts and feelings that you would be dismissed, punished, ignored or made fun of?" There were similar questions about peers.

After statistically accounting for other known risk factors such as low positive affect or high levels of aggression, findings revealed a high perception of family invalidation was a statistically significant predictor of a later suicide event--paritcularly among boys. It was also a strong indicator of self-harm among both boys and girls.

"What this points to is the importance of assessing for the teen's individual feelings of invalidation," Yen added, via a news release. "This is different than a lack of social support."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology.