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International Journal of Behavioral Research & Psychology (IJBRP)
ISSN 2332-3000
Meta-Emotion and Meta-Cognition in Suicide Clinical and Critical Issues
Review Article
Abdullah MQ*
Professor, Clinical Psychology & Mental Health, College of Education, University of Aleppo, Syria.
Depression is one of the most common psychological disorders.
During any given year, about 15% of all adult between 18-75 may
suffer significant depressive symptoms, and one out of every 100
people with a depressive disorder dies by suicide. Suicide is the
second leading cause of death for 15-34-year-old in USA (Center
for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). The following table
shows the prevalence of suicide in the world [10].
Previous research suggests that, along with well-known factors
including depression and past suicidal behaviors, difficulties with
emotion regulation might increase the risk factor of suicide attempt [9].
Suicide typically combines three emotions: despair, guilt, anger. In
other words, the person wants to dies (escape), wants to be killed
(punished), and wants to hurt (punish). Where do such feelings
come from? Usually they are preceded by the history of interpersonal troubles with family, in-law, or a lover or spouse. Often
there are drinking problems, sexual adjustment problems, or job
difficulties. The highest risk factors to suicide involve the combination: older divorced male, physically ill, substance abuser, living
alone. The combination of these factors leads to severe depres-
sion and preoccupation with death as the "answer" to the person
suffering.
People who attempt suicide are not necessary "mentally ill", anyone may temporarily reach a state of depression severe enough
to attempt suicide but the most significant factor is cognitions.
It is estimated that about two thirds of all suicide attempt fall in
the "to be" category. A key limitation of existing research on the
link between emotions, cognitions, and behavior, however, is that
it has focused almost on the self-reported use of emotion regulation and one of the most researched ways to regulate emotion is
cognitive reappraisal, an antecedent-focused strategy that involves
cognitive reframing of emotional stimuli in the way that augments
the intensity, length and expression of an emotion [3].
Many research has been studied the emotion in suicide and depression [1]. The role of cognitive function in suicidal ideation
in patients with major depressive disorder has been adequately
explored. Thinking, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and attributes
play an important role in completed suicide. Suicide thoughts lead
to suicide threats, and to suicide attempt and finally completed
suicide. Neurocognitive deficit appear to be a risk factor of sui-
Suicide rates by WHO Region in 2015 (per 100 000 people)
WHO Region
WHO
Southeast Asia
Africa
Europe
Western Pacific
Americas
Eastern Mediterranean
Age-standardized
rate
10.7
13.3
12.8
11.9
9.1
9.1
4.3
Crude rate
10.7
13.3
7.4
15.7
10.2
9.9
3.9
Crude male Crude female Male - Female
rate
rate
ratio
13.6
7.8
1.74
14.9
11.7
1.27
9.9
4.9
2.01
25.2
6.8
3.73
10.9
9.5
1.15
15.2
4.6
3.27
5.0
2.7
1.84
WHO (April 2018).
*Corresponding Author:
Dr. Mohammad Qasim Abdullah,
Professor, Clinical Psychology & Mental Health, College of Education, University of Aleppo, Syria.
E-mail: mk.abdalah@yahoo.com
Received: July 02, 2018
Accepted: August 13, 2018
Published: August 14, 2018
Citation: Abdullah MQ. Meta-Emotion and Meta-Cognition in Suicide Clinical and Critical Issues. Int J Behav Res Psychol. 2018;6(3):235-236.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.19070/2332-3000-1800041
Copyright: Abdullah MQ© 2018. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abdullah MQ. Meta-Emotion and Meta-Cognition in Suicide Clinical and Critical Issues. Int J Behav Res Psychol. 2018;6(3):235-236.
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cidal behaviors [2], and are presumed to lead to an increased risk
suicide due to an incorrect appraisal of one's life situation and
consequently to poor decision - making [8].
stood. It is significant for assessing to try to accept and understand feelings "meta-emotion" and thought/attributions "metacognition" the person is expressing.
Suicidal ideation is a consistent predictor of suicide attempts and
completed suicides [4]. However suicidal ideation expressed to
health care providers is less frequent in older compared to younger adults, but the suicide rates in older adults are much higher than
those in younger adults [5].
In sum, all humans (both pathological and normal) are quite fallible information-processors.
According to the relationship between emotion and cognition in
suicide ideation and behavior, I suggest the cognitive structure
that affect and be affected by emotions of suicidal behavior, on
one hand, and the connection between meta-cognition and metaemotion in this behavior on the other hand.
Causal attributions are beliefs ascribing an effect to some one
or more presumed caused. Causal attributions take the form of
“some event (Y) was caused by some one or more antecedent
events (Ys).
Attributes or ascriptions refer to the characteristics of the person, situation or thing. Attributes or ascriptions take the form
of "Some characteristics (X) belongs to some object (x) and is
descriptive of that objects".
Expectations are beliefs regarding the probability of assurances
of one or more events, given one's current state of knowledge.
Expectations take the form of "some event (y) has a given likelihood of occurrence (P), given various antecedent conditions
(Xs),” The antecedent events (The Xs) may be seen as either being cause or merely incidental correlates of the consequent events
(Ys).
These three types of specific cognitive contents or products can
be seen to match the three area of inquiry targeted by Ross (1977)
as representing the domain of interest attribution theory: causal
inferences, person or situation perceptions, and the prediction of
outcome or behaviors.
The other types of cognitive contents of interest include the following : Perceptions of contingency (perception of relationship
between two or more situations), perception of control (perception that some individual or agency exerts a causal influence over
the occurrence of some events), perception of responsibility
(ascription of accountability for an event to some individual or
agency, and finally, perceptions of value, attribution of worth or
hedonic relevance to some event and object.
Meta-Emotion v Meta-Cognition
It is very significant to go on to the new contents or products
that remain unclear in suicide specially, during adolescence. Metaemotion described as the awareness of one person's emotions (in
suicide: anger, despair, and guilt), and meta-cognition describe as
the awareness of one person's cognitions (in suicide: thoughts,
beliefs and attributions).
The suicidal person feels helpless and decides that death is only
solution. The person has narrowed all his/her options solely to
death. Knowing these patterns will give some guidance in talking
to a suicidal person. This person "feels" and "thought" misunder-
The major task for clinicians and psychotherapists is to delineate precisely "How” and “Why” people think what they think, and
how pathological and normal populations differ. Theses population may differ more with respect to their cognitive and emotion
contents or products and schemata than they do in the ways they
process information. The major goal of cognitive and behavioral
therapy is to alter the beliefs, attributions, and awareness of feelings that are presumably maintaining psychopathology in general,
and suicide in special, and this may be achieved by altering the client's information-processing and awareness emotions to a more
normative.
Abnormal responses to social stimuli had been described in
younger people vulnerable to suicidal behavior [6], Lack of feeling connected to others and poor social problem solving [7] can
amplify the risk for suicide. Szanto and colleagues reported that
older suicide attempters committed significantly more errors in
social emotion recognition and showed poorer global cognitive
performance than elders with no psychiatric history Attempters
had restricted social networks: they were less likely to talk to their
children, had fewer close friends, and did not engage in volunteer
activities, compared to non-suicidal depressed elders and those
with no psychiatric history.
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Abdullah MQ. Meta-Emotion and Meta-Cognition in Suicide Clinical and Critical Issues. Int J Behav Res Psychol. 2018;6(3):235-236.
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