Ethological and Psychological Aspects of Pantomimic Self-Harming Behavior

Abstract

In the present work, self-injurious behavior of humans and higher animals is considered from the ethological approach. In clinical work, the analysis of patho-psychological disorders and disorders from the point of view of ethological psychiatry (psychology) allows us to understand the nature, pathogenesis and mechanisms of behavioral patterns and pantomimics in patients with borderline and psychiatric disorders. Self-traumatization can be observed in epilepsy, autism, mental retardation, and in accentuated and neurotic adolescents. According to the author's team, body and skin damage is a manifestation of instinctual response. Physical autoaggression satisfies the realization of aggressive instinct, is supported by opioid pleasure from pain and is realized at limitation of direct reaction to negative stimulus. The authors conducted a comparative analysis of the pantomimics of physical autoaggression (self-injury) of 15 adolescents with psychological traumas, 15 children with mental dysontogenesis and 12 monkeys (javan macaques and rhesus macaques). Results of the study showed that experimental primates redirected aggression to their own bodies and limbs in the face of an attack motivation obstacle. Adolescents, in response to the stressor, insected their skin with sharp and stabbing objects. Children with psycho-verbal disorders illustrated primatological forms of self-injury in response to a limiting and negative stimulus. The revealed pantomimic acts of physical autoaggression in experimental monkeys, children with mental developmental disorders, and adolescents with psychotraumatic experience show the commonality and species specificity of the nonverbal pattern of self-injury. In humans and primates, homologs of autoaggressive patterns in pantomimic production are found in nonverbal production. The study may be useful to psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, and psychotherapists.