Reading focus
Syllabus: Why Are Suicidal Thoughts and Actions Difficult to Explain and Predict?
Separate a proposed maintaining function from the definition of the behavior.
Why you’re reading it. Introduce nonsuicidal self-injury as an outcome requiring explanation in its own right.
A question to consider. How could two behaviors share a proposed function while differing in intent, and what evidence would prevent you from simply assuming that function?
Why this reading
Nock asks what a behavior does in a person’s life, rather than treating it as an unexplained symptom. The model separates general vulnerabilities, maintaining functions and factors that might make a particular behavior more likely.
Before you read
Nonsuicidal self-injury is defined here by the absence of suicidal intent. A function is a proposed consequence that helps maintain behavior, not a moral judgment or an assumption about conscious intention. Reinforcement means an increased likelihood of repetition.
Read for
- Separate explanations of vulnerability, initial occurrence and persistence.
- Compare evidence about reported motives with evidence capable of identifying a maintaining process.
Consider afterwards
- What observation would distinguish an explanation of onset from an explanation of persistence?
- Why does identifying a function leave the underlying mechanism unresolved?
Editorial context
This is a 2009 theoretical synthesis with preliminary and often correlational support. Its historical prevalence and treatment statements are not a current evidence review. A later review of the relationship with suicidal behavior found sparse prospective mechanism tests; related outcomes remain distinct.