Beyond distress: a role for positive affect in nonsuicidal self-injury

The ability to generate and regulate emotional experiences is critical to psychological well-being. Impairments in emotion regulatory processes have transdiagnostic associations with psychopathology. Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is prevalent in adolescent populations, especially clinical adolescent populations, and often linked to emotion regulatory deficits. Clinical observations propose a role for NSSI behaviors in regulating affect, suggesting that these behaviors may arise when other emotion regulatory strategies are insufficient or inaccessible. Experimental evidence has begun to explore the psychophysiological and neural underpinnings of emotion processing in NSSI populations. Thus far, a primary focus has been the role of NSSI in regulation of affect in response to stressful or negative states or stimuli, often suggesting enhanced reactivity in such situations. However, recent evidence suggests that NSSI populations may also display heightened reactivity to positive or rewarding stimuli. Here, we highlight this emerging data and how it may be integrated into existing NSSI framework.