You cannot be addicted to suicide because you can only do it once. You should not confuse repeated deliberate self harm with suicide.

There are different ways of viewing things. I am not comfortable with the behavior addiction, and I have not seen nothing clinically which would cause me to classify suicidal behavior in those terms. Non-fatal suicide-like behavior is common among folks with borderline personality and similar. If they could be engaged in a club with a common interest like a suicide avoidance club they may get some support and benefit. My only word of caution is that people have found that clubs for those with anorexia can lead to competitive anorexia, and I would want to ensure such a club provided support, rather than competition

Maybe this is a naive way of looking at this, as this is the first I've ever heard of suicidal addiction, but couldn't this be another version or expression of an "adrenaline junky"? I mean, what is sky diving if not suicidal behavior not intended to actually end one's life? Of course the mind set of a sky diver versus the type of person you've describe would be different, but I feel like both addicts are in the habit of almost killing themselves which makes me feel like they might be getting the same sort of high.

I don't feel confortable with the term, either. In fact, I found it lacking of empathy of the distress or psychache that people may experiencing and potentialy stigmatising. Please, find or coined a different term. Be careful with catchy terms. Nevertheless, if you ask about the experience, I think I have seen something like this in patients. People that, for example, stand for while outside of a window before climbing back into their room, without necessarily have been seen by anyone else. I think it might be related to a physiological state of relief, that come after a flush of adrenalyn. Sort of , say, feeling quiet after watching a scary movie. Probably a homeostatic process... I have been said that that allows them to think clearer, to check if the current problem worth to risk their life, or not while their desire to live is stronger. I am sure this is a very risk behaviour. I have seen it adolescents and personality disorders. Good point of mentioning it, because I haven't read anything about it..

I agree with Jaime and Paul, and often consider this type of terminology as being a form of pop psychology. Most people with sucidal ideation have some form of mental disorder and are suffering and in cases of suicide in patients with Depression, there have been morphological findings of atrophy and volume loss in the hippocampus. Yes, suicidal attempts are often a form of attention seeking, a method of calling for help, whilst in other cases, a serious suicidal attempt goes wrong and the patient attempts it again with successful results. There are certain cognitive and emotional processes that occur, dependent on the type of disorder, such as borderline personality disorder, or Major Depressive Disorder resulting in different variations and degrees of suicidal ideation. In some cases it is possible that the most primordial instinct of survival kicks in (with physiological alterations) after a suicide attempt and thereby rectifies the disparity partially between physiological and psychological processes, however this does not indicate addiction, and in some cases forces (so to speak) individuals to seek help. Hope this helps.

Thank you all for your comments. Here's what I think that you are suggesting: (i) a better term would be "suicidal behavior addiction" (but there is concern about the idea of being addicted to a behavior); (ii) whatever the terminology there is no evidence of an addiction to suicidal behavior; (iii) the concept is similar to repeatedly engaging in high risk activities that provide a high; (iv) there may be cases of individuals who engage in suicidal behavior, ever near attempts, but stop when they achieve some physiological relief; and (v) the behavior attributed to addiction may be driven by a psychiatric disorder or other dynamic. I apologize if I misinterpreted any or all of the responses. I'm not ready to give up on the concept. I think that it has an elelment of face validity and warrants some consideration despite its controversial nature. In any case, I'm sure that my précis does not do Dr. Tullis' concept justice. Regards!

Dear Tony, it is a very important aspect of significant scientific endeavour to ask the hard, or difficult questions, and to have different views. It assists others to consider their positions and to either question them or validate them. It takes some courage to question status quo (even though it is based on evidence) and consider new perspectives. I am glad that you challenged some conventional scientific thinking and if addictive personalities show similar physiological patterns with those who repeatedly attempt suicide, and there is a strong significant correlation you may be onto something important. However, behaviour within itself, is generally perceived as a symptomology of another factor, and the type of suicide and its relevant taboos across different cultures will influence suicidal behaviour, thus the displaying of such behaviour may differ across genders, ages and societies. For instance, males may be considered weak and not macho for attempting it, thus they may be more motivated to do it correctly the first time, and generally prefer (depending on culture) different methods to women. It may be important to determine if there are specific mental disorders, or personality type that display the specific type of suicidal behavior you are considering. I know based on evidence that those who have for instance different sub -types of Depression without concomitant personality disorders are serious about their suicide attempts, and will in general be successful, if not treated, or put on suicide watch. It would make a good study in your work place if you were able to do research on the patients that come in repeatedly and establish personality traits, possible mental disorders, other related disorders, such as substance abuse, or organic medical disorders, neurodegenerative disease etc, (full medical, psychological and familial history) has you may then be able to further establish a pattern. Wishing you the best!

Dear Tony, 

It's a long time (2 years) since you began this discussion. Since 2011 I'm trying to test the hypothesis that some suicide attempters, particularly major repeaters (5 or more lifetime suicide attempts) might indeed develop an addiction on suicidal behavior. I've seen some suicide attempters, usually major repeaters, saying that they were "hooked on" their SB, and similar comments. We got the hypothesis published in 2012, and have recently published a paper on this. You can download it at my profile. Moreover, we've been accepted another paper in Psychother & Psychosomatics on automatic positive and negative reinforcement, and its role in major repetition of SB. Basically, we found that major repeaters are not "just" borderline PD patients, but also, that emptiness is critical to major repetition of SB. Indeed, emptiness was even more important to major repetition of SB than BPD itself. I guess the paper will be published during 2015. Hope u the best!

Hilario: Thank you for letting me know about your research. I will definitely read your paper and I look forward to the one to be published this year. This is an important and much neglected area of research. 

Warmest regards!

Tony