Suicidality. How can you work with it as a psychologist? Suicidal thoughts/wishes/plans

When you're going through a difficult time in your life, it's common to have thoughts of stopping it all, ending your life. You may see it as a possible solution to your problems. Get out of your difficult situation. Get away from it all. It's typically scary and usually something you don't want to do. That's why it's scary. It's good that it is and it's called Inner Resistance in psychology.

As an ordinary person who usually functions okay in their own life, you don't have to be so frightened to experience these thoughts during a mental crisis or stress. Like so many other automatic thoughts, you can also experience this. Most of our thoughts are quite automatic and out of our control. They just happen. In cognitive psychology, it is said that at least 95% of our thoughts are automatic and come on their own. That's almost all of them. As long as you are frightened or uncomfortable by these thoughts, it'sProbably just automatic thoughts of an unwanted solution to your problems.

I distinguish between what I call the Green, Yellow and Red Zones. Experiencing unwanted and frightening suicidal thoughts when under psychological stress is in the green zone. It's harmless and often an understandable sign of crisis. Where I as a psychologist become more aware is when the client also wants to get out of here, that there is a suicidal desire. The fact that you also have a desire to get out of here is a step further in meaning. It's in the yellow zone and should be taken seriously. It's probably a crisis for the individual who has a lotExistential meaning. One that has lasted a long time without being resolved. This needs to be discussed in therapy and it is important that the client changes practices and thoughts. The final stage, the red zone, is when the person also starts making concrete plans to take their own life. When this happens, we are in a serious place where action must be taken to take care of the client.

To summarize, where I as a psychologist become aware is when the client wants to get out of here. Suicidal thoughts are common in psychological crises. At the Sankt Hans Psychiatric Center, they first looked at whether people had these thoughts. This was common in crises, mental illness and especially severe mental illnesses that require hospitalization. Next, the focus was on whether the patients wanted to get out of here/kill themselves. Then concrete plans; whether they had actually imagined how they woulddo that. In that case, they considered hospitalization in a closed ward to keep people safe.

My experience: people rarely mention more than that they might have the thoughts. In psychiatry, it has been a topic that came up in other circumstances on the ward with the nurses or doctor. I have then talked to the patients about their situation. Sometimes while they were hospitalized in a closed ward.