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Prevention and Postvention of NSSI and Disordered Eating

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Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Eating Disorders

Abstract

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and eating disorders (EDs) are comorbid disorders with a number of common risk factors, including negative emotionality, negative body image, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation. Existing work in the ED field draws upon the nonspecific vulnerability-stressor model and critical social perspectives to engage adolescents as well as prevention specialists in the prevention process. Although there is very little empirical research on the prevention of NSSI, there are guidelines in the areas of preventing ED, depression, and suicide. Postvention, or interventions that occur after a disorder has already developed, is a concept developed in the field of suicidology to provide aid to the family, friends, and school community of an individual who has completed suicide. As NSSI and EDs affect a living sufferer in addition to those around them, postvention is modified here to include identification, assessment, and referral of the affected individual, as well as programs to support families, friends, and schools. After reviewing the key concepts and existing prevention and postvention research, this chapter uses the mental health intervention spectrum model of prevention to propose an ecological prevention/postvention model with interventions at the level of the media, community, school system, family, student body, and affected individual.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Lara J. Cox

  2. Department of Psychology, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH, USA

    Michael P. Levine

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  1. Lara J. Cox
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Correspondence to Lara J. Cox .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Laurence Claes

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA

    Jennifer J. Muehlenkamp

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Cox, L.J., Levine, M.P. (2014). Prevention and Postvention of NSSI and Disordered Eating. In: Claes, L., Muehlenkamp, J. (eds) Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Eating Disorders. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40107-7_17

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