suicide - Cognitive & Behavioral Aspects

                                    Cognitive-Behavioural aspects of Suicidehttp://mindzone.in/

1. Suicide is associated with depression. The critical link between depression and suicidal intent is hopelessness.

2. Hopelessness, defined operationally in terms of negative expectations, appears to be the critical factor in the suicide. The suicidal person views suicide as the only possible solution to his/her desperate and hopelessly unsolvable problem (situation).

3. The suicidal person views the future as negative, often unrealistically. He/she anticipates more suffering, more hardship, more frustration, more deprivation, etc.

4. The suicidal person’s view of him/herself is negative, often unrealistically. He/she views him/herself as incurable, incompetent, and helpless, often with self-criticism, self-blame, and reproaches against the self (with expressions of guilt and regret) accompanying this low self-evaluation.

5. The suicidal person views him/herself as deprived, often unrealistically. Thoughts of being alone, unwanted, unloved, and perhaps materially deprived are possible examples of such deprivation.

6. Although the suicidal person’s thoughts (interpretations) are arbitrary, he/she considers no alternative, accepting the validity (accuracy) of the cognitions.

7. The suicidal person’s thoughts, which are often automatic and involuntary, are characterized by a number of possible errors, some so gross as to constitute distortion; e.g., preservation, overgeneralization, magnification/minimization, inexact labelling, selective abstraction, negative bias.

8. The suicidal person’s affective reaction is proportional to the labelling of the traumatic situation, regardless of the actual intensity of the event.

9. Irrespective of whether the affect is sadness, anger, anxiety, or euphoria, the more intense the affect the greater the perceived plausibility of the associated cognitions.

10. The suicidal person, being hopeless and not wanting to tolerate the pain (suffering), desires to escape. Death is thought of as more desirable than life.

Sunil Kumar

Clinical Psychologist

Jayasudha Kamaraj

Counselling Psychologist

http://mindzone.in/