Author: Madeleine Ahlström and Hanna Puonti Title: To meet the invisible population - A qualitative study of men with deliberate self-injury [Att möta de osynliga - En kvalitativ studie om killar med självskadebeteende] Supervisor: Anders Östnäs Assessor: Jan Petersson   This study aims to provide a picture of the underlying causes why men deliberately hurt themselves. It also aims to provide a picture revolving how men self-harm and what the direct effects are from their self-harm. The study describes their behaviour and how the behaviour has evolved over time. There is also a focus in the study to illustrate how society´s operative approach towards men makes their self-harm invisible, and make them an invisible population that neither the scientists nor the general population chooses to see. Self-injury is strongly associated with girls and their way of harming themselves. Men have been excluded from studies of self-injury, also have there been very few scientists that found them of interest to study.   This is a study with a qualitative approach wich executed eight semi-structured interviews with men who have had a behavior of self-injury. The study takes on a hermeneutic approach to knowledge, to have the possibility to interpret in the analysis of the empirics. To analyse the data we have used a qualitative content analysis according to Graneheim and Lundman (2004). The results has been analysed by Antonovsky´s (2005) KASAM theory. The study has found that men have a self-injury that is multifaceted. The men in the study use different behaviours to manage various emotional factors that affect them. Deliberate self-injurious behaviours become a coping strategy for the men when they didn’t have other strategies to cope with when their faced difficulties.

The main purpose for this study was to examine how boys with destructive and self-harming behaviour are perceived and comprehended by school counsellors and literature. The study assessed how boys who harm themselves are defined both in practice and in theory by using a social constructivist point of view and a gender perspective. The study was divided in two parts concerning gathering knowledge of the matter. The authors, using a method called qualitative semi-structured interviews, interviewed nine school counsellors. To acquire scientific knowledge, the authors implemented a literature review and researched books and journal articles regarding boys who self-harm. An essential discovery is that boys, who self-harm, have a tendency to be overlooked and excluded from the issue. This is mainly depending on how these boys often express their feelings by acting out their emotions in a physical manner. It is socially acceptable for boys to be extroverted, to be louder and use bigger gestures while girls are introvert and emotional human beings. This is depending on social expectations on each gender and the qualities and behaviour that are associated with being either male or female.