The unfortunate loss of life to suicidal acts is a tremendous tragedy which can be viewed as preventable. As mental health and discussion of suicidal emotions remain taboo among numerous cultures today, the challenge to break down assumptions about suicide is an uphill battle with great need for not only revolutionary ideas, but supporting evidence.
While this transformation does not happen overnight, a portion of it has begun at UBC. Dr. Klonsky and Dr. May in the Department of Psychology have proposed a new theory with the ideation-to-action framework in The Three-Step Theory (3ST) to combat one common assumption about suicide: if someone was suicidal, it must have been because of (something).
Klonsky and May argue that while there are many individuals who may develop suicide ideation, most do not attempt to commit suicide. Thus pushing our curiosity to wonder: How come? What is the distinction in deciding to stay alive or committing suicide?
Klonsky and May have proposed that growing suicidal ideation (suicidal thoughts and tendencies) and actual attempts are distinctly separate processes. This provides an explanation to why there is a separation from the population who appear to be merely experiencing suicide ideation to people who additionally attempt. Making these distinctions between processes is widely important for assessing risk factors which may push individuals who are actively experiencing suicide ideation to attempting.
What are the intervening factors which push individuals over the edge to attempting? While this is currently being investigated in Klonsky’s Personality, Emotion, and Behavior Lab, the 3ST puts forward two factors: connectedness and capacity.
With a greater sense of connectedness to any form of community, relationship, family, work, or any other instance of belonging to something, the 3ST proposes that this connection is a restraining factor in pulling people who are suicidal away from attempting. This notion explaining the reasoning behind thoughts including, “I can’t do it. Who will take care of my family?” or “There’s no way I could. What would people at work think?”
When considering the second factor of capacity, this notion switches focus from a preventative to enacting standpoint. The 3ST argues that if the individual has strong suicide ideation (including connectedness being less than the pain or ideation they are currently experiencing) and a capacity to commit suicide, this will lead to an attempt. Capacity is outlined as access to poison/weapons or perhaps having previously bared witness to violent acts and feeling more desensitized to violence.
While Klonsky and May’s ideas are currently expanding in the suicidology research, the ideas proposed in the 3ST are beginning to provoke people in asking apt questions about how suicide works and assessing risk factors to lead to more preventative measures.
Written by Thalia Lang
References:
Klonsky, E. D., & May, A. M. (2015). The Three-Step Theory (3ST): A New Theory of Suicide Rooted in the “Ideation-to-Action” Framework. International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 8(2), 114-129.