Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017)

Date of Award

4-2015

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

BA

Department

Psychology

Faculty Mentor

Phillip Smith Ph.D.

Advisor(s)

John Shelley-Tremblay Ph.D., Annmarie Guzy Ph.D.

Abstract

Suicide is a major public health concern. Over one million individuals die by suicide around the world every year; over thirty thousand in the United States alone. Individuals who have experienced trauma and those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder are both at higher risk for suicide. The Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide is a theoretical framework that attempts to explain why individuals die by suicide. Unlike many theoretical explanations of suicide, it emphasizes the role of multiple influential factors in different aspects of suicidality. The interpersonal theory posits that for an individual to die by suicide, he or she must be experiencing a desire for suicide and the acquired capability to carry it out. For an individual to desire death by suicide, he or she must experience feelings of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness. The acquired capability for suicide is built over time through habituation to the fear and pain involved in death through exposure to painful and provocative life experiences. The current study investigated the relations among interpersonal theory constructs and symptom clusters of PTSD in a shelter-seeking population of female victims of interpersonal violence. Constructs of thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for suicide, lifetime trauma exposure, and levels of PTSD symptoms were measured. Results from this study revealed correlations between both thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness and all symptom clusters of PTSD. Additionally, this study found acquired capability to be correlated with individuals' lifetime experience with trauma. Furthermore, this study found certain symptom clusters to be unique predictors of interpersonal theory constructs. The majority of these findings are in line with hypotheses posited by the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide, although some unique results suggest the need for further inquiry to clarify the relationship between PTSD, trauma and suicide.

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