Clues to Suicide,Reconsidered

This brief paper focuses on a rather recondite aspect of the suicidal scenario: dissembling (feigning, pretending, withholding). Most individuals who commit suicide exhibit prodromal indicia in the month before. These verbal and behavioral clues are found in about 90% of psychological autopsies of suicidal deaths. As for the other 10% who mask or hide their lethal intentions, we do well to assume that even some hidden clues might be deciphered by the skillful clinician or the alert friend or colleague.