On Butterflies, Tornadoes, and Suicide Prevention

In this course, Dr. Craig Bryan (PsyD, ABPP, Trott Gebhardt Philips Endowed Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Ohio State University) acknowledges how predictive analytics in suicide prevention have proved no better than traditional methods. Using weather prediction as a model, Dr. Bryan instead proposes a method of determining who may be moving toward a suicidal state by using the concepts of emergence and the butterfly effect. He shows, through maps of various trajectories, that suicide is not a unidimensional phenomenon, and that different rules apply to different trajectories. Different clinical implications for how clinicians respond to suicide are discussed, adapting the method of treatment to the pathway whereby the person arrived at a suicidal state.