Mental pain and suicide.

Different models of mental pain (emotional pain, psychological pain, psychache) are described: (A) the literary model that is based on a content analysis of Styron's book Darkness visible: A memoir of madness, describes mental pain as an inner turmoil of hostile forces; (B) the narrative model based on a qualitative analysis of pain narratives by patients defines pain as a sense of brokenness (Bolger); (C) the phenomenological-psychache model focuses on psychache as a frustration of the most important needs (Shneidman); (D) the theoretical model and (E) the empirical model view mental pain as a perception of negative changes in the self and its function (Baumeister) (Orbach & Mikulincer). The common aspects in all models include intense negative emotions, loss of self, surfeit of the negative. Other aspects appear in some of the models, but not in others (e.g., incompleteness, emptiness). The relevance of mental pain to treatment of suicidal people is discussed.