Transmit and receive: what factors inhibit or facilitate the communication of emotional pain between suicidal patients and mental health professionals?

Dunkley, C. (2014) Transmit and receive: what factors inhibit or facilitate the communication of emotional pain between suicidal patients and mental health professionals? University of Southampton, Faculty of Health Sciences, Doctoral Thesis, 274pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

Escape from emotional pain has been identified through suicide-note research as the main driver for completed suicide. Research using fMRI scanning has detected shared neural networks between physical and emotional pain, suggesting that emotional pain is a discrete somatic experience very similar physiologically to physical pain. Little is known about the process by which suicidal patients communicate their emotional pain to mental health professionals. In this study data were collected from 26 mental health professionals and 9 patients at risk of suicide and subjected to inductive thematic analysis. The results were formulated into an emotional pain communication model, identifying 4 types of emotional communication Unspoken/Unheard, Spoken/Unheard, Spoken/Heard and Unspoken/Heard. 14 subthemes identify the inhibitors and facilitators of emotional pain communication within these 4 types.

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