Objective: To understand the real experience and feelings of self injurious cutting in adolescents with depression, to provide guidance for clinical targeted interventions. Methods: During November 2021 to May 2022, 19 adolescent patients with depression who had cut themselves as the type of non suicidal self injury were recruited from a tertiary first class psychiatric hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. All the participants were interviewed in a semi structured manner, which used the interpretative phenomenological analysis to analyze the transcription data. Results: The experience and feelings of non suicidal self injury in adolescent with depression could be summarized into five themes: self injury thoughts that arise under external interference; self injurious behavior in a thousand thoughts; painful but a happy experience of self injury; cutting as the most frequently selected form of non suicidal self injury; decreases in self injurious behavior reduced when they feel love and responsibility. Conclusion Non suicidal self injury of adolescent patients with depression are affected by various factors. Clinicians should provide targeted clinical care according to the characteristics of patients, as well as the no suicide contract, alternative skills of non suicidal self injury behaviors, and a multi dimensional social support platform with the families of patients.