Shneidman’s Cube’s unique contribution lies in its shift from categorical risk stratification to a continuum-based approach. By illustrating how distress can progress across the axes of pain, perturbation, and stress, it empowers professionals to recognise that even small changes can significantly reduce risk. This model moves us away from absolutes, demonstrating that progress is possible through incremental steps, providing a hopeful, actionable framework for suicide prevention.

Beck’s Cognitive Triad uniquely contributes to understanding suicidality by offering a cognitive roadmap focused on the negative view of self, world, and future. This model shapes our understanding of the predisposition phase, highlighting how entrenched negative thought patterns can lead to suicidal ideation. It also presents opportunities for intervention through cognitive reframing and restructuring. By addressing these thought patterns, professionals can develop targeted interventions, making it pivotal for early-stage safety planning and cognitive-based therapies.

Baumeister’s Escape Theory uniquely contributes to understanding suicidality by focusing on the role of self-blame, inadequacy, and failure. Particularly relevant during the intention stage, it explores how individuals may attempt to escape aversive self-awareness through suicidal behaviour. This model highlights how feelings of failure and self-perceived inadequacy can drive suicidal intent, providing crucial insight into how these cognitive patterns can be addressed therapeutically, and offering targeted avenues for intervention.

Linehan’s work, particularly the Reasons for Living vs. Reasons for Dying model, provides profound insight into the internal struggles of individuals, especially those with borderline personality disorder. By illuminating this internal battle, it opens avenues for motivational interviewing to shift the balance towards life-affirming choices. Concepts like the rational mind, emotional mind, and wise mind further enrich these conversations, helping individuals recognise states that lead toward suicidality. Additionally, chain analysis offers a detailed exploration of triggers, antecedents, behaviours, and consequences, providing not only understanding but also tailored intervention strategies for staying safe.

Williams’ Cry of Pain Model is pivotal for understanding the transition from ideation to action, particularly in its exploration of defeat and entrapment. Building on Beck’s Cognitive Triad and Shneidman’s notions of psychic pain, it frames suicidality as a desperate cry for relief. The model’s unique contribution lies in its clear framework for understanding entrapment, presenting suicidality as a perceived lack of escape from unbearable pain. This perspective not only deepens our comprehension of the suicidal mind but also underscores the necessity of interventions that address feelings of defeat and offer pathways out of entrapment.

Van Orden’s Hierarchical Taxonomy of Suicide categorises risk factors into  dispositional, acquired, and practical, making it a powerful tool for clinicians across all phases, particularly predisposition and ideation. It underscores that interventions can occur at any stage based on identified risk factors. By offering a structured approach to risk, it not only informs clinical practice but also lays the groundwork for later models like the Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model, enhancing our understanding and intervention capabilities throughout the suicidality spectrum.

Joiner’s Interpersonal-Psychological Theory of Suicide offers a straightforward yet powerful framework for understanding the transition from ideation to action. By integrating the concepts of thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability, it distils complex dynamics into three core forces driving suicidality. The model’s simplicity and clarity have made it instrumental in shaping contemporary suicide prevention strategies, providing a clear pathway for clinicians to assess and intervene in suicidal behaviour.

The Integrated Motivational-Volitional Model offers a comprehensive framework that spans the entire spectrum of suicidality. By dividing the process into three phases—predispositional, motivational, and volitional—it illuminates the moderators that drive progression from one phase to the next. These moderators offer crucial intervention points, enabling targeted safety planning, monitoring, and prevention strategies. Though complex, its depth and breadth provide professionals with unparalleled insights into the complexities of suicidal behaviour, making it an invaluable tool for comprehensive assessment and care.

Fluid Vulnerability Theory is exceptionally advanced, focusing on the dynamic nature of suicide risk. It uniquely differentiates between acute and chronic risks, offering insights into baseline risk variations among individuals. This model clarifies how multiple attempters possess higher baseline risks, while single attempters may require more significant stressors to escalate risk. By highlighting the interplay of cognitive, affective, physiological, and behavioural factors, Fluid Vulnerability Theory provides a nuanced understanding of how suicide risk fluctuates, making it an invaluable tool for comprehending and addressing suicidality’s complexity.

The Cusp Catastrophe Model offers a highly sophisticated understanding of suicidality, focusing on the importance of specific triggers for specific individuals. It demonstrates how crises can emerge abruptly, even when everything seems stable. By explaining stable, dysregulated, and discontinuous changes, it clarifies why some individuals appear fine until a sudden crisis occurs. This model is crucial for explaining suicidal attempts that seem unanticipated, offering a framework to understand the seemingly sudden onset of suicidal crises.