Thompson, Samara R. (2016) Eliciting and Responding to Suicide Ideation: A Collective Case Study. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
A psychologist’s ability to elicit suicide talk during therapeutic consultation is an important component in the assessment of a client’s risk of suicide. Acknowledging this, the aim of this study was to explicate how suicide ideation is elicited and responded to in therapeutic consultations. This study used discursive psychology as the research framework and conversation analysis as the analytic methodology. It followed a collective case study design, examining multiple instances of suicide talk between one provisional psychologist and one client. Data consisted of 3 recorded consultations between psychologist and client. Results indicate both psychologist and client can, and do, introduce suicide as a therapeutic-relevant topic into the consultation. When suicide was introduced, it was done using a number of discursive elements including increased pitch, volume and/or pauses, perturbed talk, and pre-questions. This had the effect of introducing suicide as a delicate topic, although results indicate that suicide was not necessarily responded to in the same delicate manner, especially in later consultations. It is hoped that the outcomes of this study will provide the basis for further research to inform the development of best-practice resources that are grounded in a real-world treatment context and consequently, improve how psychologists perform suicide risk assessments.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Andrea Lamont-Mills |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 22 Sep 2025 23:56 |
| Last Modified: | 22 Sep 2025 23:56 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | suicide ; suicide ideation ; conversation analysis ; discursive psychology |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52819 |
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