Chapter 12: Suicide: Ideation and Prevention

Overview

Suicide is “the act of killing oneself” (APA, 2022). Suicide has the potential to occur when an individual is depressed, substance use disorder, or another psychological disorder. Suicide can occur without any apparent psychological catalyst (APA, 2022).

Statistics provided by the World Health Organization (2021) 700,000 annually die by suicide. 4th leading cause of death among 15-19 year olds. 77% of global suicides occur in low- and middle- income countries. Pesticides, hanging, and firearms are the most common methods of global suicide.
Statistics provided by the World Health Organization (2021)
700,000 annually die by suicide; 4th leading cause of death among 15-19 year olds; 77% of global suicides occur in low- and middle- income countries; Pesticides, hanging, and firearms are the most common methods of global suicide.

Ideation

Suicidal ideation means that an individual is having thoughts about hurting themselves. Sadly, the statistics show that those thoughts are turned into actions. Below are some slides, provided by the National Insitute for Mental Health (2022), which share the demographic data of suicide rates in the United States.

Prevention

Below are five cards to share some ways to prevent suicide, review each card (CDC, 2022). You can also review extended resources from the CDC on preventing suicide here in English or here in Spanish.

There are many TED Talk playlists on the prevention of suicide, it may be beneficial to review these at your leisure to better understand the struggles, the stigma, and hear the stories of survivors. Select this link to see the playlists compiled by TED. Meanwhile, here are a few, selected for this chapter:

References

American Psychological Association (2022). Suicide. APA. https://dictionary.apa.org/suicide

American Psychological Association (2019). Better ways to prevent suicide [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MicvRxT_Msw

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2022). Facts about suicide. Suicide Prevention. Retrieved on August 30, 2022 from https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html

Davis, C. (2018, June 14). Preventing suicide: Three things to never do! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMHoYqpkhhQ

National Institute of Mental Health (2022). Suicide. Mental Health Information. Retrieved on August 30, 2022 from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide

Penn, S. (2017, August 15). Shattering the silence: Youth suicide prevention [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRo5Db_7yVI

TEDMED (2020, September 10). A simple, powerful way to help prevent teen suicide [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_z2rfL1BC0

World Health Organization (2021). Suicide. Retrieved on August 30, 2022 from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

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Psychopathology by Andrea Bearman and Jackie Delagrange is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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