Beyond the Unidimensional Account of Suicidal Desire: Examining the Dynamic Balance of the Wish to Live and the Wish to Die in Clinical and Non-Clinical Settings

Ambivalence is a shared tumultuous state of many contemplating suicide. A common limitation of studies examining the competing desire for life and death is that the assessment method used implicitly assumes the two desires have a reciprocal relationship. We examined the wish to live and the wish to die in non-clinical and clinical samples using multidimensional approaches to address this limitation and employed longitudinal designs in both clinical samples to examine patients' trajectories of change. These studies provide novel insights into suicide ambivalence and evidence the importance of adhering to a bi-dimensional conceptualisation of suicidal risk.