The connection between psychological trauma and suicide from the perspective of self-representations

Abstract

Classical psychologically-oriented research into suicide does not address the important nexus between traumatic life events and the suicide of an individual. With the development of psychotraumatology there has appeared the first research to suggest a high correlation between suicide and trauma occurring both during early development as well as in later life. Severe trauma or repeated emotional stress, which cannot be integrated into the child's perception of reality, lead to negative changes in the development of children's neurobiological structures and functions, especially the prefrontal cortex or right hemisphere. This article focuses on the role of negative self-representations in psychological trauma and suicide with an emphasis on the neurobiological level, and tries to find a meeting point between the construct of suicide and psychological trauma with the role of negative self-representations through science-based methods such as the Firestone model or Orbach's model of suicidal development. It offers a neurobiological view of traumatization in which there develops the catastrophic disintegration of self-representations and feelings of psychological pain. The central role of negative self- representations fully connects the concepts of suicide and trauma, and provides a new access to suicide prevention through better understanding of the characteristics which indicate a growth in negative thought processes and the development of mental pain.