Is there a way to know that a young man is about to take his own life? So far, psychologists working with potential suicides rely mainly on their subjective feelings. But perhaps soon they will have an objective tool at their disposal.
Thoughts of suicide visit, alas, very many. Fortunately, far fewer people decide to go from words to deeds. But this huge difference between words and deeds gives rise to one very serious problem. Is it possible to say with any certainty that this or that person is really close to the last line? There are many psychological assistance programs for potential suicides. However, specialists often lack objective criteria for assessing the patient’s condition.
me or everyone else
It is possible that the results of a new study undertaken by psychologist Mira Brancu will greatly help in developing these criteria.1. It was attended by 114 American students who applied for psychological help in the medical centers of their universities. All of them complained, among other things, about suicidal thoughts pursuing them. Before starting therapy, the students completed a questionnaire developed by Maira Branco and her colleagues. The questions concerned the most painful and painful experiences. The study participants also had to write a short essay in free form – about the meaning of life, the reasons for leaving it, and what, in the opinion of the students, could make them give up thoughts of suicide.
Read more:
- Why do teenagers choose to die?
Then the young people began to undergo therapy, and their essays were processed by a computer program that analyzed, among other things, the frequency of the use of certain words. After completing the therapeutic courses (fortunately, all without exception were successful), the scientists compared the duration of work with each student with the results of computer analysis of texts. Students who used more second and third person pronouns (“you”, “you”, “she”, “they”) in their texts needed an average of 6-7 therapy sessions to get rid of thoughts of suicide and generally feel it is better. But for those who used first-person pronouns (“I”, “me”, “mine”) more often, the effect of therapy was much less pronounced. It took almost three times as much work to alleviate their symptoms – 17-18 sessions.
Dead Poets Society
The results allow us to talk about the division of potential suicides into those who are more focused on other people (second and third person pronouns), and those for whom their own person is most important. The former are generally less inclined to take decisive action. At least for the obvious reason that they take into account the experiences that their act will cause in relatives and friends. The second is not too worried about this circumstance, and therefore they are much more likely to take a fatal step.
Read more:
- Sunlight drives you to suicide
Maira Branco and her colleagues admit that the material of the current study is not enough for large-scale conclusions. However, they intend to continue their work and look to the future with optimism. If further, more extensive research confirms their hunches, then theoretical psychologists will be able to equip their fellow practitioners with a fairly objective tool for assessing the seriousness of the intentions of potential suicides.
By the way, in this regard, we can recall the curious work of psychologists Shannon Stirman and James Pennebaker2. They analyzed the texts of about 300 poems by 9 famous poets and found that those who committed suicide used the first person pronouns much more often.
1 M. Brancu et al. “Are there linguistic markers of suicidal writing that can predict the course of treatment? A repeated measures longitudinal analysis ». Online publication on the portal Taylor & Francis (tandfonline.com) from July 28, 2015.
2 S. Stirman, J. Pennebaker «Word use in the poetry of suicidal and nonsuicidal poets», Psychosomatic Medicine, 2001, № 63.