Suicide and Perfectionism: A Psychological Autopsy Study of Non-Clinical Suicides

Abstract

This study explores suicide in relation to perfectionism among individuals who died by suicide with no history of treatment in mental health care or of suicide attempts. The study is part of an ongoing psychological autopsy study (PA-study). It aimed to produce a phenomenological understanding of the dynamics/processes from perfectionism to suicide among 6 men aged 22 to 58. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze the interview data of 41 key informants. Based on the informants' narratives, it seemed that perfectionism left these men less able to cope with their (self-perceived) inability to meet their high expectations. Four themes emerged from analysis: 1) striving for success; 2) fear of failure; 3) keeping up the façade; and 4) rigidity. The results may be important in the prevention of nonclinical suicides, a group that is particularly difficult to identify, especially if the deceased have been regarded as very successful in many areas.

Signs of current suicidality in men: A systematic review

“…Anger [34,42], direct statements of suicidal intent [33,44], and paucity of problem solutions [33,42] were common signs associated with male deaths by suicide (see Table 2). Rasmussen et al [33] also found that in the days prior to death by suicide, many informants reported that conversations with the deceased were marked by an absence of negative mood, or the emergence of a more positive mood state, in addition to agitation, the perception of death as a problem solution, desperation and reaching out for support in desperation.…”

“…Multiple studies identified anger as a suicide sign associated with suicide attempts among men [31,45,46]. A paucity of problem solutions was associated with suicidal ideation [38], but also associated with death by suicide among men[33,42]. Direct statements of suicidal intent were associated with both suicide attempt and death among men[33,44,46].…”

“…This is evident through the number of studies in this review that used retrospective interviews with informants on suicide attempters and decedents to identify signs of suicide [33,34,42,45]. Recent research has found that there are consistent patterns in types of presenting features considered by helpers to indicate imminent suicide risk.…”

The perniciousness of perfectionism: A meta‐analytic review of the perfectionism–suicide relationship

“…Over 50 years of case reports, theoretical accounts, and empirical research implicate perfectionism in suicide (e.g., Blatt, ; Hassan, Flett, Ganguli, & Hewitt, ; Hewitt et al, ; Kiamanesh, Dyregrov, Haavind, & Dieserud, ; Shaffer, ). And yet, there is much to learn about the perfectionism–suicidality relationship (Flett et al, ).…”

Perfeccionismo infantil: Normalización de una escala argentina para su evaluación

“…Los individuos con perfeccionismo desadaptativo tienen una mayor prevalencia a experimentar síntomas del desorden afectivo, como depresión y ansiedad (Abdi, Gholamreza Chalabianloo, Joorbonyan, 2015;Egan, Wade y Shafran, 2011), y a presentar actitudes y conductas alimentarias de riesgo (Boone, Soenens, Braet, y Goossens, 2010;Dour y Theran, 2011;Sherry, Stoeber y Ramasubbu, 2016), estrategias disfuncionales para enfrentar el estrés (Sirois y Molnar, 2014), adicción al trabajo (Stoeber, Davis y Townley, 2013) e inclinación suicida (Kiamanesh, Dyregrov, Haavind y Dieserud, 2014;Rasmussen, Slish, Wingate, Davidson y Grant, 2012), entre otras características perjudiciales.…”