Edwin Schneidman’s 10 common characteristics of suicidal people.1. Unendurable psychological pain.2. Frustrated psychological needs3. The search for a solution.4. An attempt to end consciousness5. Helplessness and hopelessness.6. Constriction of options.7. Ambivalence.8. Communication of intent.9. Departure.10. Lifelong coping patterns.Edwin Schneidman’s 10 common characteristics of suicidal people.1. Unendurable psychological pain.•Suicide is not an act of hostility or revenge but a way of switching off unendurable and inescapable pain. •If you reduce their level of suffering, even just a little, suicidal people will choose to live.2. Frustrated psychological needs •Needs for security, achievement, trust, and friendship are among the important ones not being met. •Address these psychological needs and the suicide will not occur.•Although there are pointless deaths, there is never a “needless” suicide.3. The search for a solution. •Suicide is never done without purpose. •It is a way out of a problem or crisis and seems to be the only answer to the question: “How do I get out of this?”4. An attempt to end consciousness •Suicide is both a movement away from pain and a movement to end•consciousness. •The goal is to stop awareness of a painful existence.5. Helplessness and hopelessness. •Underneath all the shame, guilt, and loss of effectiveness is a sense of powerlessness. •There is the feeling that no one can help and nothing can be done except to commit suicide.6. Constriction of options. •Instead of looking for a variety of answers, suicidal people see only two alternatives: a total solution or a total cessation. •All other options have been driven out by pain. •The goal of the rescuer should be to broaden the suicidal person’s perspective.7. Ambivalence. •Some ambivalence is normal, but for the suicidal person ambivalence is only between life and death. •In the typical case, a person cuts his or her own throat and calls for help simultaneously.•The rescuer can use this ambivalence to shift the inner debate to the side of life.8. Communication of intent. •About 80 percent of suicidal people give family and friends clear clues about their intention to kill themselves.9. Departure. •Quitting a job, running away from home, leaving a spouse are all departures, but suicide is the ultimate escape. •It is a plan for a radical, permanent change of scene.10. Lifelong coping patterns. •To spot potential suicides, one must look to earlier episodes of disturbance, to the person’s style of enduring pain, and to a general tendency toward “either/or” thinking. •Often, there has been a style of problem solving that might be characterized as “cut and
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