On the Randomness of Suicide

Ethological Problems with the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide

“…Better data and finer methodology cannot, even in principle, overcome the behavior’s intrinsic non-predictability. Individual suicides may likewise be constitutionally opaque to usefully accurate prediction or proximal explanation (Lester, 2019a; Soper et al, 2022).…”

“…It may also be recognized, as discussed above, that anti-suicide machinery, powered by an evolved algorithm, will have exploited available informational inputs to the extent that there should be no usefully predictive regularities left. Notwithstanding patterns detectable at a population level, suicide emerges as a largely aleatory phenomenon at the level of the individual (Soper, 2019b; Soper et al, 2022).…”

“…This conclusion is not as bleak as may first appear. The pain-brain stance invites a paradigmatic change of perspective that could bring far-reaching benefits in mental healthcare (Soper et al, 2022). By relocating “fault” for suicide outside of the individual—as a universal “occupational hazard of being human” (Soper, 2019a, p. 468), as opposed to a personal derangement or dysfunction—the framework offers a way to de-sting the shame and stigma that accompany the phenomenon.…”

“…By predicting suicide’s intrinsic non-predictability, it may assuage the guilt that often besets the bereaved (Ajdacic-Gross et al, 2019). It could help to move the focus of suicide prevention towards more productive strategies; away from interventions led by ineluctably inaccurate and arbitrary judgments of individual risk, towards means-restriction and other community-wide measures (Bryan, 2022; Soper et al, 2022). And it suggests, positively, that the human psych is precisely adapted to manage its own risk.…”