A New Approach to Suicidal Behavior Diagnostics: A Review of Foreign Sources

Abstract

The paper presents a review of the studies on innovative suicide prevention strategies, methods, and approaches to diagnosing suicide risk. We examine the results of the studies that allow developing new approaches to creating effective suicide risk assessment tools, based on building a trusting relationship with the patient/client and focusing on the doctor’s/therapist’s own emotional experiences. We describe a complex narrative-crisis model of suicide that includes long-term and short-term risk factors for suicidal behavior and incorporates the suicidal crisis syndrome. We conclude with describing modern tendencies in suicide risk diagnostics — namely, overestimating the methods’ efficiency. New methods for assessing critical states possessing good predictive validity should be developed and implemented.

Keywords

• suicide
• diagnostic methods for suicidal behavior
• suicidal crisis syn¬drome
• narrative crisis model of suicide