Suicidal Risk Factors
Emotional and medical symptoms:
- Severe depression
- Feelings of helplessness or hopelessness
- Substance abuse or mental health disorders
- Compulsive gambling
- Delusions or auditory hallucinations commanding self-harm
- Chronic debilitating or severe illness
- Severe pain
- Severe unrelenting anxiety
- Loss of self-esteem
- Severe overreaction to stress
- Lack of impulse control or poor judgment
- Feelings of rage, hostility, or revenge
- Repression of angry feelings
- Severe internal conflicts, such as overwhelming guilt or ambivalence
Stressors
- History of abuse
- Dysfunctional family
- Relationship difficulties
- Legal problems or criminal involvement
- Severe financial problems
- Recent experience of a serious loss
- Extreme social isolation
- Lack of social support
- Spiritual distress
- Feeling that there is no future
- Family history of suicide
- Previous suicide attempts or threat
Suicidal Plan:
- Suicidal thoughts or ideation
- Getting personal business in order or giving away possessions
- Having a high lethality suicide plan (definite plan, time, place and means to carry out the plan)
Unwillingness to sign a no-suicide contract (contract signed by the client that contains a statement such as, “I will not kill myself in any way, shape, or form for any reason”).