There has been a 15 per cent rise in self-harm cases in men over the past ten years, according to figures from the National Suicide Research Foundation.
The national rate of self-harm among males was 186 per 100,000 in 2015, 1 per cent higher than in 2014, while the rate of self-harm among females in 2015 was 222 per 100,000 females, a 3 per cent rise from 2014 figures.
The rate of self-harm cases amongst both males and females has been steadily rising in Ireland but according to Paul Gilligan, Chief Executive of St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services, these increases can be attributed to societal factors and a lack of understanding from support networks and society in general.
“We have to understand these statistics in the context of what’s been happening in Irish society,” said Gilligan.
“Irish society has come through a very traumatic time. Many of these young people [who are suffering from self-harm] have been at the receiving end of that trauma, whether that be through experiences at home or at school, or the societal impacts of a major recession and all the psychological and emotional impacts of that.
“That’s one factor and then the second factor is that we’ve got to really focus on helping young people understand and cope with stress, trauma, adversity, and I’m not sure we’ve been very good at doing that over the years.
“I think that we have come from a position of being a ‘suck it up’ society to a society with a more mature outlook on the issue. I think that we are now realising that we have to teach our young people resilience and give them the emotional skills to deal with these types of traumas.”
Gilligan also noted that the stigmatisation of mental health and self-harm issues is also still a major problem in Ireland and that there needs to be a better understanding of self-harm among respective victims support networks, particularly with relation to a victim’s parents, family members and teachers.
“One of the biggest areas of stigma in mental health is this issue of self-harm,” added Gilligan.
“It carries a massive amount of stigma for a young person, or for anybody, to disclose to another person that they have an intention to self-harm or have already self-harmed.
“We’ve got to really tackle that stigma because if we don’t it will remain an area that people won’t talk about. Why is there stigma? Because there’s shame, there’s confusion and there’s misunderstanding.
“There’s an uncertainty about how people are going to react. If somebody declares to a friend or a parent that they’re feeling down or that they’re depressed, and they’re demonstrating all the symptoms of that, they’re likely to receive a supportive, open response.
“But if somebody shows that they’ve just cut themselves with a blade, they are not necessarily going to expect, or get, a supportive response.
“We have to train people and work with people to understand that this is a demonstration of stress.”
Educating parents, teachers, family members and professionals on how to treat the issue of self-harm will form the foundations of the 2017 Self-Harm Awareness Conference which will be held at the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday March 1st. .
The conference is designed to continue the dialogue and conversation concerning self-harm and will feature key note speeches from Dr Niall Muldoon, the Ombudsman for Children, as well as Blindboy Boatclub, a.k.a. Dave Chambers from The Rubberbandits.
The conference will co-ordinated by St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services and Pieta House with more information and tickets available at www.stpatricks.ie/selfharm
by Jack O’Toole
Image Credit: St Patricks Hospital
The Irish Newsroom 