[Current modeling of suicidal behavior : crisis, transition, and vulnerability].

Current modeling of suicidal behavior: crisis, transition, and vulnerability. Suicidal behavior is multifactorial and polymorphic. Modeling - although simplifying - is necessary. This article presents three interactive processes: the suicidal crisis, the transition from ideas to action, and the suicidal vulnerability. The suicidal crisis is a state of rupture of the psychic balance, often occurring in response to an event of social and interpersonal character, and leading the individual to the significant thoughts that only suicide is the solution to one's own problems. This crisis is particularly marked by an unbearable psychic pain whose cessation is the goal of most suicidal gestures. The acting out occurs in less than a quarter of people with suicidal ideas. The mechanisms responsible for the emergence of suicidal ideation appear partly different from those allowing the transition to a suicidal act. Suicidal risk in a context of psychosocial stress is increased by the existence of vulnerability factors, whose complex nature is developmental, genetic, cognitive, and temperamental, among others.