Teenage Girls & Cutting Behavior: Adler's Mistaken Goals

Apr 30, 2011
Kelly Pfeiffer

Teenage Girls Want Belonging and Significance - Nicolas Raymond

In the past self mutilation has been associated with severe emotional pain and depression, but now cutting fits into behaviors that are socially contagious.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, cutting behavior was mainly associated with depression, but in the new millenium, cutting has become normalized into teen culture to the point that teenage girls are engaging in self mutilation for reasons other than to relieve emotional pain. Parents and professionals may want to consider Adler’s mistaken goals when treating teenage cutting issues.

A Brief Introduction to Adler’s Mistaken Goals

Adler believed that the primary goal of all people is to feel a sense of belonging and significance with others. Adler believed that this feeling is best achieved by contributing to others or a group in significant way.

When people don’t know how to belong to a group or don’t have the skills for being part of a group, they often adopt mistaken ideas about how to belong or mistaken ideas about how to cope. Adler called these mistaken ideas “mistaken goals”. The four mistaken goals are Attention, Misguided Power, Revenge and Assumed Inadequacy.

Self Mutilation for the Mistaken Goal of Attention

Although cutting behavior was not orginally diagnosed as an attention getting behavior, some teenage girls have begun using the behavior as such. In the book, Teenage Girls: Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help (Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2006), Ginny Olsen writes about the frustration “real cutters” feel about fake cutters or “poseurs”, those who cut or scratch themselves on body parts that others will see.

Teenage girls may cut because they see it as a way to draw attention to themselves, so others will ask questions about the exposed wounds. This attention getting can be centered around a need to be viewed as a victim or a need to keep others busy with the girl or even as a way to fit and be accepted into a group of cutters. The mistaken idea inside a girl’s head may be, “I belong when I get noticed a lot.” These adolescents mistakenly believe that the way to achieve belonging and significance is through constant attention.

Cutting for the Mistaken Goal of Power

Just as many eating disorders are rooted in a sense of lack of control, cutting behaviors may stem from the same feelings. Research published in 2010 revealed that many girls with eating disorders are also cutters. Girls may cut to take charge of their emotions and exert some power over their bodies.

Statistics for cutting behavior confirm that cutting shows up in girls who have been sexually abused. Self mutilation may offer girls some sense of power over the physical self.

Cutting Behavior for the Mistaken Goal of Revenge

When girls don’t know how to belong, they often feel hurt about not fitting in or not feeling significant at home or among peer groups. When girls don’t know healthy ways to deal with the emotional pain of hurt feelings, they often resort to hurting back.

Teenage girls may cut as a secret way to get back at parents or to punish themselves for something they did or something that happened to them. For example, a girl who was sexually abused may be punishing herself for allowing the abuse to happen.

Cutting for the Mistaken Goal of Assumed Inadequacy

The mistaken goal of assumed inadequacy means that people assume they are inadequate at belonging and they give up. This mistaken goal often manifests itself in depression and is likely the mistaken goal most associated with cutting in its original roots.

The primary thinking from the mistaken goal of assumed inadequacy is “It’s impossible to belong. I can’t belong. I can’t handle my life.” Self mutilation is a short term way to cope with the emotional pain of not feeling a sense of belonging and significance. Science has documented that the human body reacts to the cutting by releasing endorphins and actually creates emotional relief through a physical endorphin induced high.

Physical Signs of Cutting for Different Reasons

The location on a teenage girl’s body may be one indicator of a teenager’s mistaken goal. Girls who cut for the mistaken goal of attention may cut or scratch on parts of the body that others may see – the wrists, arms, ankles, etc. and then wear clothes that expose the wounds or scars.

Girls who are depressed and/or emotionally struggling usually cut in places that don’t expose their cutting behavior – upper thighs, belly, arms and then wear clothes that cover the cutting damage.

For more information viewing self-mutilation through the lens of Adler’s mistaken goals, parents and professionals may want to read an article published in the Journal of Individual Pscyhology, "An Adlerian-feminist model for self injury treament: A holistic appraoch", by Healey, A. & Craigen, L. (2010).

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