Untangling the link between experiential avoidance and non-suicidal self-injury: a multidimensional approach

ABSTRACT

Objective

Experiential avoidance, an individual’s unwillingness to experience uncomfortable internal feelings/emotions, has been found to be associated with history of self-injury. This association is mainly found in studies that use global measures of experiential avoidance. However, experiential avoidance is purported to be a multidimensional construct. This study aims to test both unidimensional and multidimensional measures of experiential avoidance and their associations with self-injury.

Method

University students (n = 632, M = 25.01, SD = 7.13, 78.8% female, 70.9% with lived experience of self-injury) completed well-validated self-report measures of self-injury, experiential avoidance (The Brief and the Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire).

Results

As expected, all sub-scales of multidimensional measure of experiential avoidance were highly correlated with the global score for experiential avoidance. The global measure of experiential avoidance differentiated individuals with no history, with past history, and recent history of self-injury. When assessed using the multidimensional measure, only the sub-factors behavioural avoidance and repression and denial differentiated those with no history of self-injury from those with recent history and those with recent history from those with past history of self-injury.

Conclusion

Findings raise the possibility that associations between experiential avoidance and self-injury may be down to two specific aspects of experiential avoidance, namely 1) behavioural avoidance and 2) repression/denial. If true, this will have important theoretical, clinical, and measurement implications for research into self-injury.

Key Points

What is already known about this topic:

1. Self-injury is prevalent among university students.

2. Experiential avoidance is associated with non-suicidal self-injury.

3. Experiential avoidance is a multi-dimensional construct.

What this topic adds:

1. Despite the knowledge that experiential avoidance is a multidimensional construct, most studies utilise unidimensional measures to capture the construct.

2. This study explores experiential avoidance from a unidimensional and multidimensional approach.

3. Experiential avoidance is associated with non-suicidal self-injury, however, when we look at the specific aspects of experiential avoidance, only behavioural avoidance and repression/denial retain the association.

4. Understanding the specific aspects of experiential avoidance that are associated with engagement in self-injury can assist in providing more targeted clinical interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Experiential avoidance
• self-injury
• unidimensional
• multidimensional
• NSSI

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [MB], upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

Sophie Haywood is supported by a Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship from Curtin University. Mark Boyes is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council Australia [Investigator Grant 1173043].