Understanding and Changing Suicidal Thoughts

When our clients tell us about suicidal thoughts or attempts, we sometimes think that they want to “die as a whole person” (Fisher 2019, p. 173). However, suicidal thoughts and attempts usually “reflect” the “viewpoint and impulse of one self-part, but not necessarily all self-parts” (ibid.). Often they are not an expression of the desire to die, but rather of the desire not to have to continue living as before or of the thought and feeling of not being able to continue living like this.