ABSTRACT
Suicidal ideation needs to be understood for what it is, and what it represents to the individual. Suicidal ideation also often includes an aspect of wishing to destroy some aspect of the self. In working with suicidal thoughts and urges, the therapist is advised to account for the existential aspects that these thoughts represent. Paradoxically, suicidal ideation can be a manifestation of death anxiety, or can be considered as an alternative to ‘taking responsibility’ for the client who feels desperately anxious and overwhelmed at the prospect of taking full responsibility for their life, with all the implications therein. Returning to a ‘pure’ Transactional Analysis perspective, although script theory offers some explanations of suicidal wishes, reducing suicidal urges only to a manifestation of a single script issue or seeing it as a client's script pay-off will almost certainly be an over-simplification.
