Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a treatment specifically developed for individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). DBT has been found to be effective in treating BPD related suicidality, substance use, and eating disorders. The weekly diary cards are one of the most essential components of DBT. Diary cards are a paper based standardized self-monitoring tool that can facilitate therapists in tracking the progress of clients in between therapy sessions. Previous studies have established many advantages of diary cards, such as its higher client retention rate than that of group-based DBT sessions. A typical diary card records the degree of urges for maladaptive behaviors such as self-harming, as well as the DBT coping skills the client has used for each day of the week. This current project strives to examine the potential correlation between weekly mean self-harm urge scores and number of skills used by examining diary cards from multiple previous DBT clients. It is speculated that increased self-harm urge level is related to decreased coping from clients. The result of this correlation study might warrant a full-scale randomized control trial on this subject matter to locate potential causation. This current project also strives to answer whether certain skills are highly related with self-harm urge, as previous studies indicated that some skills were used more than others by DBT clients. Correlation obtained here may serve to develop behavior-specific coping skills.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM V) characterizes Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as impairments across social functioning (e.g., an inadequately developed, unsteady self-image and constant conflict in relationships) and personality traits (e.g., negative affectivity, rejection sensitivity, impulsivity, and hostility). Because of these impairments, people with BPD frequently encounter serious problems such as emotion dysregulation and suicidality. Emotion dysregulation is defined as a lack of emotional comprehension, inability to cope with emotions in adaptive ways, and unacceptance of distress as part of goal accomplishment, and the lack of ability to pursue a goal in distress. Self-injurious behaviors (SIB), which captures both suicide and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), is also an issue to note for people diagnosed with BPD, because they are at higher risk for SIB. It is evident that emotional dysregulation and suicidality are clear disturbances to having a balanced, healthy life. The study pertains to investigate the relationship among emotion dysregulation, rejection sensitivity, and SIB across the patients’ treatment timeline. We first hypothesize a direct relationship between emotion dysregulation and SIB; prior research suggests that diagnosis of BPD will increase the likelihood of suffering from emotion dysregulation and SIB respectively. This is crucial, because it tests the theoretical model of the relationship between the two variables. Our second hypothesis aims to take a scope at how rejection sensitivity exerts a mediator effect on the relationship between emotion dysregulation and SIB among individuals diagnosed with BPD. We conjecture that higher rejection sensitivity will strengthen these two relationships. The study recruited 99 females diagnosed with BPD to assess their emotion dysregulation, rejection sensitivity, and SIB. Based on the analyses, we expect to provide an empirical support for the theoretical model and encourage future research to better promote health for individuals diagnosed with BPD.

Previous research has shown that Implicit Association Test (IAT) scores on a suicide-relevant IAT significantly predict future suicidal behavior. Additionally, evidence suggests that social exclusion may be a significant risk factor for eventual suicide; however, given that previous studies have been mostly correlational in nature, inferences regarding the causal relationship between previously identified theorized risk factors and suicidal behavior remain elusive. This study sought to address this gap in literature by experimentally manipulating experiences of social exclusion and looking at its impact on both implicit and explicit measures of suicidality. Participants were 42 undergraduate students who were asked to play Cyberball, a virtual ball-throwing activity in which the participant was randomized either to be included or excluded by virtual players whom the participant believes to be real. Afterwards, participants filled out The Survival and Coping Beliefs Scale (SCBS), an explicit measure that has been shown to prospectively predict one’s future suicidal behavior, and they then performed a behavioral assessment of implicit suicide cognition using the death/suicide Implicit Association Test (d/s IAT). An independent sample's t-tests found no evidence for a statistically significant difference between experimental conditions in average SCBS scores regarding their self-reports of expectations for the future following the Cyberball task. However, participants in exclusion conditions scored significantly higher on d/s IAT compared to their counterparts, which suggests socially excluded groups identified more strongly to suicide than the inclusion conditions following the Cyberball task. This study provides proof-of-principle findings that this type of methodology may be able to be applied to other research questions investigating the link between established risk factors and suicide-related constructs. From these findings, we infer that there may be a causal impact of social exclusion on one’s relationship to suicide and death on implicit levels that may not correspond with explicit reports.

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States and in the world. Suicide has a profound economic, psychological, and social impact. Unfortunately, many of those who experience suicidal thoughts and behavior are not in touch with traditional mental health treatment. One method to reduce the structural and attitudinal barriers for suicidal individuals not enrolled in treatment is the use of technology. In this study, we recruit approximately 800 college student age 18 to 24 from University of Washington psychology subject pool. Subjects fill out surveys on demographics, suicidal ideation (Beck Scale of Suicide Ideation; Beck, Kovacs, Weissman, 1979), help-seeking preference (Rickwood, Deane, Wilson & Ciarrochi, 2005), stigma (Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Inventory; Ritsher, Otilingam, & Grajales, 2003), self-concealment (Self-Concealment Scale; Larson and Chastain, 1990), interpersonal relationship (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems), and cultural values (Culture Orientation Scale; Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). First, we examine whether one’s level of suicide ideation predict one’s treatment preference (face-to-face vs online) using a multinomial logistic regression with three groups (individuals unlikely to seek help either online or face-to-face; individuals likely to seek help online only; and individuals likely to seek help face-to-face). In the second phase of analyses, we investigate potential mediators of the relationship between suicidality and help-seeking preference with mediation using bootstrapping, a method based on repetition and resampling with replacement. The results can be used to direct the development of future interventions to better fit suicidal individuals’ needs according to their preferences of being helped.