My impression (I do research in this area broadly speaking) is that this sort of tool is not really very strongly related to the reasons why they present no warning signs, etc.
Implicit measures tend, on replication and rigorous scrutiny, to kind of be very broad brush and not very specific. There is a literature on implicit measurement and suicide, and it seems they hold up, but they don't dramatically add to anything, and there's also tricky issues about the meaning of "preconscious" assessment. So, lots of false positives etc, and also maybe even bigger questions about the meaning of implicit processing relative to conscious opportunities for "revision".
I think the problem is, what good does it do if someone has some predilection toward suicide but isn't aware of it? If they were going to be resistant to addressing it without this tool, why would they be less resistant to it with it?
The problem with suicide prediction has never really been in predicting suicidal attitudes or cognitions, it's been predicting the actual follow-through with an attempt or success. That depends on a lot of stuff that exists outside of attitudinal space, for lack of a better way of putting it. Someone can basically feel disturbed by the idea until they don't, and then change rapidly in their feelings about it, or vice-versa.
I can't say I think this research line is a bad idea; I think the more information the better. But I'm really skeptical about how well it will work up when really skeptically evaluated, with lots of data, especially when you put it to practice. There's a lot more hurdles than people think.
Implicit measures tend, on replication and rigorous scrutiny, to kind of be very broad brush and not very specific. There is a literature on implicit measurement and suicide, and it seems they hold up, but they don't dramatically add to anything, and there's also tricky issues about the meaning of "preconscious" assessment. So, lots of false positives etc, and also maybe even bigger questions about the meaning of implicit processing relative to conscious opportunities for "revision".
I think the problem is, what good does it do if someone has some predilection toward suicide but isn't aware of it? If they were going to be resistant to addressing it without this tool, why would they be less resistant to it with it?
The problem with suicide prediction has never really been in predicting suicidal attitudes or cognitions, it's been predicting the actual follow-through with an attempt or success. That depends on a lot of stuff that exists outside of attitudinal space, for lack of a better way of putting it. Someone can basically feel disturbed by the idea until they don't, and then change rapidly in their feelings about it, or vice-versa.
I can't say I think this research line is a bad idea; I think the more information the better. But I'm really skeptical about how well it will work up when really skeptically evaluated, with lots of data, especially when you put it to practice. There's a lot more hurdles than people think.