GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Aborted suicide attempt:
Potentially self-injurious behavior with evidence (either explicit or implicit) that the person intended to die but stopped the attempt before physical damage occurred.

Antianxiety agents:
Used to treat anxiety disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Antidepressants:
Drugs that are usually prescribed with the intent to relieve the symptoms of depressions. However, they are also used to treat anxiety, panic attacks, obsessive disorders, eating disorders, chronic pain, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Antipsychotic agents:
These medications control symptoms of psychotic illnesses, such as visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoid thoughts, often found in schizophrenic or manic patients. Dosages and potency vary among drugs and illnesses.

Comorbidity:
The co-occurrence of two or more disorders, such as depression and panic disorder.

ECT:
Electroconvulsive therapy is used only to treat severe, debilitating mental disorders and not to control behavior, as it is often portrayed in Hollywood. Further, it is usually used in extremely depressed patients who have not responded to psychotherapy and medication. Patients at extremely high risk of suicide may benefit from ECT due to extremely rapid results. However, lack of evidence for long-term suicide risk reduction requires close supervision and additional treatment in the following weeks and months.

Lethality of suicidal behavior:
Objective danger to life associated with a suicide method or action. Note that lethality is distinct from and may not always coincide with an individual's expectation of what is medically dangerous.

Mood stabilizers:
Medications used in the treatment of bipolar disorder in which there is evidence of high and low mood. Examples are lithium and certain newer antipsychotic drugs.

Protective factors:
Elements in one's life that increase one's ability to battle against impulses/thoughts of suicide (i.e. religiosity, positive relationships, life satisfaction, etc.).

Psychosocial situation:
The psychosocial factors in an individual's life relate to his or her functioning and relationships among family, friends, coworkers, and one's environment, thus determining one's ability to balance the factors. Factors that can affect one's psychosocial situation and make it positive or negative include marital status, job status, dysfunctional relationships, social isolation, and interpersonal loss.

Psychotherapy:
Talking therapy that is often used in addition to medication as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. Cognitive behavior therapy, a popular form of psychotherapy, focuses on trying to change a person's negative thinking and behaviors and the inaccurate perceptions they have of themselves and their environment. Another type of psychotherapy, interpersonal therapy, teaches a person how to successfully interact with others. A third variation of psychotherapy, psychodynamic therapy, draws on psychoanalytic theory to help people understand the origins of emotional distress, often by exploring unconscious motives, needs, and defenses.

Risk factors:
Elements in one's life that are associated with a greater likelihood of attempting or committing suicide (i.e. mental illness, family history, physical illness, etc.).

Self-destructive behavior/ deliberate self-harm :
Willful self-inflicting of painful, destructive or injurious acts without intent to die.

Suicidal ideation:
Thoughts of serving as the agent of one's own death. Suicidal ideation may vary in seriousness depending upon the specificity of suicide plans and the degree of suicide intent.

Suicidal intent:
Subjective expectation and desire for a self-destructive act to end in death.

Suicidality:
An individual's level of danger to him/herself at a given time.

Suicide:
Self-inflicted death with evidence (either explicit or implicit) that the person intended to die.

Suicide attempt:
Self-injurious behavior with a nonfatal outcome accompanied by evidence (either explicit or implicit) that the person intended to die.

Suicide risk:
The degree of danger to self an individual faces based on the absence or presence of suicidal behaviors and factors associated with the likelihood of suicide.

Survivor:
An individual who has lost a friend or loved one to suicide.

Treatment plan:
The strategic and individualized therapeutic approach to addressing and alleviating the symptoms of a mental illness. Treatment plans often involve mental health professionals, physicians, family members, therapies, medications, etc.

Tunnel vision:
Constricted view that life is painful and unbearable, and death is the only solution to ending the pain.