Future directions in suicide and self-injury revisited: Integrating a developmental psychopathology perspective

The recent rise in suicide rates among children and adolescents has made suicide prevention in youth a major focus of government agencies and mental health organizations. In 2012, Nock presented future directions in the study of self-injurious thoughts and behavior (SITBs), highlighting the need to better examine which risk factors are associated with “each part of the pathway” to suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury in order to inform prevention and intervention efforts. Over the past decade, we have made important advances in understanding the development of SITBs and effective interventions. However, there are still major gaps of knowledge in our understanding of how to prevent suicide. Researchers have recently called for more studies focusing particularly on the pathway from suicidal ideation to suicidal behavior. However, we caution against prioritizing only a part of the suicide risk continuum (e.g., the transition from suicidal ideation to suicidal behavior), while minimizing research focusing on earlier developmental points of the pathway to suicide (e.g., the first development of suicidal ideation). We emphasize that childhood and adolescence represent a critical opportunity to intervene and prevent SITBs by altering developmental trajectories towards persistent and escalating self-injurious thoughts and behaviors over time. We advocate for integrating a developmental psychopathology perspective into future youth suicide research that focuses on how and when risk for SITBs first emerges and develops across childhood into emerging adulthood. This research is critical for informing interventions aimed at bending developmental pathways away from all SITBs. Here, we describe the need for future research that integrates key developmental psychopathology principles on 1) the identification of the continuum from developmentally typical to atypical as SITBs first emerge and develop, particularly among young children in early to middle childhood, 2) the way in which expressions of and risk for SITBs change across development, 3) how SITBs dynamically move along a continuum from typical to atypical over time, and 4) suicide prevention efforts. We also offer recommendations for future directions that focus on identifying disparities in SITBs occur among minoritized youth within a developmental psychopathology perspective.