An Interview with a Depressed and Suicidal Patient

Interview with a Suicidal Patient
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June 1, 2022
Understanding the various reasons for a patient’s thought processes is essential for any clinician. It allows him to address these problems at the root cause and reduce the chances of recurrence. Accordingly, the case at hand is about a 40-year-old patient, with suicidal ideations and feelings of depression, after being left by her partner. A more thorough analysis of this case will be laid out in this article.
Case Summary and Analysis
This case was about a 40-year-old patient who had persistent feelings of suicidal ideations and depression. The patient’s record (and interview) showed that she has a history of intermittent depression as early as 12. She has also received various psychiatric treatments throughout her life, ranging from medications, psychotherapy, anti-depressant drugs, and hospitalizations.
Accordingly, the case happened because of her breakup with her partner. The breakup caused her to feel worthless and incapable of being loved, all due to her flaws and mistakes. As of now, even though she has a strong compulsion to find a partner right away, there is a lingering fear that any subsequent relationships would only end the same. The author believes that these two main problems must be addressed from the root cause.
On the one hand, the patient’s feeling of hopelessness and suicidal ideations was caused by her romantic beliefs and her thinking that she was worthless. The patient said that “I set different standards for myself than what I set for anybody else in the world during the session.” Coupled with her stories and explanation, this idea shows that the patient is idealistic and sets a very high expectation of herself. In one study conducted by Aruta et al. (2021), the authors noted that idealistic tendencies towards one’s self-evaluation could lead to worse depressive symptoms. This is in concurrence with another study that suggests that high standards cause higher chances to ‘blame oneself under challenging cases, which then compounds symptoms of depression CITATION Ibr18 \l 1033 (Ibrahim & Syamsuri, 2018). Accordingly, the patient’s high standards, coupled with the feeling that the breakup was her fault, could be one of the primary triggers for her suicidal ideations and a chronic feeling of hopelessness.
On the one hand, the patient also said she feels anxious and fearful that this might happen again when she tries to be with another partner. This theme was recurring throughout the multiple sessions that her therapist held. Thus, even if she feels the compulsion to find another man, a single problem or issue could make her feel that it is inevitable because of her pe...