One of the most difficult situations facing psychotherapists is the patient with chronic and persistent suicidal thoughts. The level of suffering the patient experiences, and the anxiety the therapist feels, means that the therapist feels compelled to ‘get rid of’ these thoughts. Although there are usually current overwhelming difficulties contributing to suicidal thoughts, the genesis of these thoughts are likely to be early in the developmental history, and therefore stored in implicit memory.
This paper will discuss the purpose and development of the different memory systems, and develops the hypothesis of how implicit memory contributes to current suicidal thoughts. This will, hopefully, shed some light on what needs to happen in psychotherapy for the resolution of chronic suicidal thoughts.