Situated Suicidality: Taking the Environment Seriously

This chapter examines suicidality and suicidal ambivalence through the lens of situated cognition. It examines how contextual factors can actively influence and shape the decision-making process and behavior of a person in the context of suicide, by focusing on the impact of means restriction and the role of other people in prevention of suicide in public spaces. This chapter argues that rethinking suicidality from the perspective of situated cognition offers valuable insights for our understanding of suicidality and suicidal ambivalence, as it is well placed to address both the physical and the social context of the suicidal person. We apply the relational concept of affordances, and introduce the concept of “suicidal affordances”, to show how specific material and sociocultural environments offer possibilities for dying by suicide, to which the agent might be responsive. Our situated perspective offers a new look on suicidal agency, decision-making processes, and the desire to end one’s life, as already situated and actively shaped by the environment and its affordances. The chapter thereby inspires rethinking currently prevailing approaches to suicidal ambivalence and decision-making that are focused on individual and interpersonal factors, accounting for the effectiveness of environmental interventions, and opening new avenues for research.