Self harm in Goth youth subculture: authors' reply

Editor—Our paper generated varied comments.¹ The definition of “Goth” is contentious but covers a wide range of musical tastes, social groupings, and aesthetics.² Our paper, as is clear from the title, refers to younger Goths; the results may not apply to all Goths.

Our contribution is a first step towards producing an evidence base to test the hypothesis that engagement with Goth subculture could have positive rather than negative consequences for some young people, rather than relying on media speculation.

Some contributors have suggested that the association between self harm and Goth subculture may be accounted for by other factors. This is unlikely, since we adjusted for the strongest and most relevant correlates of self harm found in other studies of young people. Others have said that our results were not valid because of the small numbers involved. Our paper underwent a formal statistical review before publication. Furthermore, while the media focused on the 25 young people who were unambiguously identified as Goth, nearly 8% of our representative sample had identified with Goth subculture, in varying degrees of intensity, and were three to four times more likely to harm themselves than the other participants.

It has also been said that by adopting a quantitative approach we may have missed contextual factors and that the high rate of self harm found among Goths is a form of decoration, analogous to body modification. We dispute this on two grounds. Firstly, since those who harmed themselves were asked why, we know that most, regardless of youth subculture, did so to relieve anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions. Secondly, although cutting could be interpreted as some form of subcultural display, such an argument is difficult to sustain in relation to attempted suicide.