In plain language
One of the most troubling paradoxes in suicide prevention is called “help negation”: the very young people who are thinking about suicide are the ones least likely to intend to reach out for help. This study asked why. Is it because suicidal teens feel hopeless, or because of what they believe about counselors and mental health services?
The researchers surveyed 269 Australian high school students about their suicidal thoughts, their sense of hopelessness, their prior experience with mental health care, their attitudes toward professional psychological help, and how likely they would be to seek help from various sources — family, friends, telephone help lines, and mental health professionals.
As in earlier research, higher suicidal ideation predicted lower intentions to seek help from every source, and higher intentions to seek help from no one at all. Hopelessness could not fully explain this pattern, and neither could previous experience with mental health care. But students’ beliefs and attitudes about professional psychological help could: once attitudes toward counseling were taken into account, suicidal thinking no longer significantly predicted avoiding professional help. The practical message is that changing what young people believe about counseling — its cost, usefulness, and trustworthiness — may be key to getting at-risk teens to accept help.
Key findings
- In 269 nonclinical Australian high school students, higher suicidal ideation significantly predicted lower intentions to seek help from all sources — family, friends, telephone help lines, and mental health professionals — confirming a general help negation effect.
- Higher suicidal ideation was also associated with stronger intentions to seek help from no one at all.
- Hopelessness could not fully account for the help negation effect: even with hopelessness controlled, suicidal ideation still predicted lower help-seeking intentions.
- Hopelessness moderated help negation only for family, and in a counterintuitive direction — help negation toward family was strongest among adolescents with lower hopelessness (the more hopeful teens).
- Previous mental health care did not fully explain the effect for professional sources, but adding beliefs and attitudes about counseling to the models made the negative link between suicidal ideation and professional help-seeking nonsignificant.
- The effect emerged in a Christian high school sample, extending help negation beyond public school and university samples and highlighting its robustness.
How to cite
APA
Wilson, C. J., Deane, F. P., & Ciarrochi, J. (2005). Can hopelessness and adolescents’ beliefs and attitudes about seeking help account for help negation? Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(12), 1525–1539. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20206
BibTeX
@article{wilson2005can,
title = {Can hopelessness and adolescents' beliefs and attitudes about seeking help account for help negation?},
author = {Wilson, Coralie J. and Deane, Frank P. and Ciarrochi, Joseph},
journal = {Journal of Clinical Psychology},
year = {2005},
volume = {61},
number = {12},
pages = {1525--1539},
doi = {10.1002/jclp.20206}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.