Beyond Symptoms: Typical Plans and Motives of Suicide Attempters Compared to Non-Suicidal Depressive Individuals

Brüdern, Juliane (26 June 2014). Beyond Symptoms: Typical Plans and Motives of Suicide Attempters Compared to Non-Suicidal Depressive Individuals (Unpublished). In: 45th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). Copenhagen, Denmark. 25.06.-28.06.2014.

Aim: A major depressive episode is still a frequently discussed risk factor of suicidal behaviour. However, current studies suggest that depression is predictive of suicidal ideas but much less of suicidal act (Nock et al., 2009). This implies that suicidal behaviour should not only be seen as a symptom of a depressive disorder, but should be understood as an independent behaviour, which must be examined separately. The present qualitative study focuses on typical Plans and motives of suicide attempters compared to non-suicidal depressive individuals.Methods: Plan Analysis (Caspar, 2007), a clinical case conceptualization approach was used to analyze the instrumental relations between participants' behaviours and the hypothetical Plans and motives "behind" this behaviour. Video taped narrative interviews of 17 suicide attempters and intake interviews of 17 non‐suicidal depressive patients were investigated with the Plan Analysis procedure and a Plan structure was developed for each participant. These were used for establishing a prototypical Plan structure for each clinical group.Results: Results indicate that suicidal behaviour serves various Plans and motives only found in suicide attempters. Furthermore depressive patients pursue interpersonal control strategies which may serve as a protective factor for not evolving suicidal behaviour.Discussion. Findings are discussed with respect to current theoretical models of suicidality as well as implications for suicide prevention.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy

UniBE Contributor:

Brüdern, Juliane

Subjects:

100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology

Language:

English

Submitter:

Adriana Biaggi

Date Deposited:

14 Apr 2015 14:08

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:44

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/65364

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback