Self-injury: Stories of Recovery & Hope

A short documentary film co-created by people with lived experience

We were recently involved with SSHRC-funded participatory video project in which three young adults with lived experience of self-injury and mental health adversity shared their stories of recovery and messages of hope. Their collective efforts resulted in a short documentary film, which was an official selection at the Great Lakes Mental Health Film Festival in Australia on World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2025. The film is also featured as part of the Festival of Ideas at the 2025 Celebration of Excellence and Engagement of the Royal Society of Canada in Montreal (November, 2025). The film is unique in that ALL aspects of the film, including its development, direction, script, narration, and production, directly involved people with lived experience.

What is Participatory Video?

Participatory video (PV) is a form of participatory action research (PAR) that involves people with lived experience in ALL aspects of the research process. Specifically, people with lived experience of a topic (in this case, self-injury and mental health adversity) come together to co-create a film about their experiences, concerns, stories, etc. The precise focus of the video(s) is entirely led by their interests and what matters most to them. They also play active roles in developing the video script, in its filming, editing and thus in all phases of the project. In this way, the resultant video comes entirely from lived experience perspectives - the result is a video chronicling their stories, in their own words. Within PV research, the video is then screened to different (often targeted) audiences to foster greater and more compassionate understanding of a topic of interest. The figure below summarises the process of our project and serves as an overview of the PV process.

Film Synopsis:

Self-injury is a serious, common, and significant mental health concern reported by up to 1 in 5 people worldwide. Unfortunately, it is also subject to much stigmatisation, which leaves many people who have self-injured feeling alone and misunderstood. This short film follows three individuals (pseudonyms: Paul, Julian, and Riley), chronicling their lived experiences with self-injury, recovery, and the messages of hope they wanted to individually and collectively impart to viewers who may currently struggle and feel alone. Their goals when sharing their stories were to offer a compassionate view of self-injury and give hope to those who may feel there is none. As such, the video concludes with a resource for viewers.

This film was produced through research support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

The film is available with French subtitles. Please complete the form to the right for more information.

This research project (including the final film) was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Interested in an in-person or virtual screening event?

We are happy to hold in-person and virtual screening events tailored to your interests and needs. For example, this can involve a screening of the film with a Q&A and discussion about the project, a presentation on self-injury and how to support people who self-injure, a discussion of self-injury recovery and what this involves, a discussion about involvement of lived experience voices in research and advocacy, etc. These are just some potential formats and we welcome your ideas. If you are interested or have questions, we ask that you kindly complete the form below. Someone from our team will get back to you soon thereafter.