Problem:
Fear of Putting the Idea in the Person's Head A frequent fear is that asking about suicidal thoughts will plant the idea. Studies of both adolescents and adults have examined this possibility and found that asking about suicide does not make people want to die by suicide (Harris & Goh, 2017). (And if you're skeptical, ask yourself now if reading this material has made you want to kill yourself. If the research is any indication, your answer is no.) Leaving aside the research findings, the fear of giving somebody the idea of suicide presumes that people could not come up with the idea on their own. In reality, it is impossible for anyone but a very young child to not already know about suicide. People learned about suicide many years before they ever set foot in a therapist's office. Fear of Exacerbating Suicidal Thoughts Even though asking about suicidal thoughts does not give someone the idea, could the question make existing suicidal thoughts worse? Quite a few researchers have investigated that question in recent years. Overwhelmingly, asking about suicidal ideation did not have a positive or negative effect. For very small proportions of people, suicidal thoughts did briefly increase, and they decreased in others (Dazzi et al., 2014). Even if suicidal ideation does worsen, that is not a reason to stop assessing suicide risk. Medicine is rife with diagnostic tests, from blood draws to colonoscopies, that cause physical pain. The potential for negative effects is justified by the information that these tests obtain.
Fear of Offending or Angering the Person Stigma wraps itself so tightly around suicide that simply to ask someone if they are thinking of suicide feels, to some people, like delivering an insult. Professionals need to not perpetuate that stigma. People who consider suicide are not doing something morally wrong. Meanwhile, techniques such as shame attenuation, normalization, and gentle assumption (Tip 9) can help soften the inquiry for clients who themselves stigmatize suicide (Shea, 2011). Over the years, I have asked hundreds of people in clinical settings if they were considering suicide. Most have answered matter-of-factly "no" or "yes." Some visibly have experienced relief on unburdening their secret. Nobody has ever become angry with me for asking about suicidal thoughts. If they did get angry, that would be okay. Anger is an emotion to be explored, not a toxin to be avoided. And, as with the discomfort of medical tests, it is a small price to pay to get at information as important as suicidal ideation. Need Assignment Help?