Individuals with non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) are known to have difficulties in regulating their emotions and NSSI often serves as a maladaptive strategy for affect regulation. The perception of one’s emotions (and therefore emotion regulation) is believed to depend on interoception, the ability to reflect on one’s own bodily and emotional states. Previous research has mostly focused on adults and the general state of interoception instead of interoception during a state of arousal, which is when individuals with NSSI report the most urge to self-injure.
The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which interoceptive perception changes in adolescents between 13 and 17 years of age with NSSI (n = 15) and without NSSI (n = 15) after emotional arousal. In addition, it was investigated whether a short mindfulness exercise influences interoceptive perception after emotional arousal. Interoception was instrumentalized as performance on the heartbeat tracking task (HBT) in addition to recommended control tasks to improve validity of the measure. Additionally, questionnaires on alexithymia and bodily perception were administered. The HBT was conducted before and after induction of emotional arousal, and following a brief mindfulness intervention. Emotional arousal was induced via viewing of emotional pictures. It was hypothesized that adolescents with NSSI show a reduction in interoceptive accuracy on the HBT after emotional arousal, compared to adolescents without NSSI. Furthermore, an improvement in interoceptive accuracy after a brief mindfulness intervention was expected for both groups. The final results will be presented and discussed at the symposium.