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Craig Bryan, clinical psychologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, treats military personnel with disturbing thoughts to end their lives, as well as those who have made attempts to commit suicide. However, as the suicide rates in U.S. have risen, he faced a greater challenge. Since the conventional methods of why people commit suicide have failed to prevent suicides, the psychologists are now reconsidering the fundamental beliefs that lead to self-destruction, "There has been an explosion of new thinking about suicide in the past decade," says Bryan. Psychologist Thomas Joiner's introduction in 2005 inspired this shift in focus of suicidal theory. Unlike older theories, Joiner from Florida State University in Tallahassee has started thinking about suicide and actually attempting it as two different experiences. According to him, each of these come with their own reasons and risks.

The suicide rate witnessed a decline between 1986 and 2000 as the rates dropped from 12.5 to 10.4 deaths for every 100,000 people. However, since then it has been increasing steadily reaching 41,000 deaths in 2013 or 12.6 deaths for every 100,000 people. It is this rise and failed counter-measures that prompted researchers to look into their textbook theories on suicide.

Together with Joiner, David E. Klonsky, psychologist at British Columbia University in Vancouver and colleague Alexis May came up with a three-step theory of suicide that was published in the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy in June. Step one comprises of emotional and physical hopelessness that initiates the thought of killing onself. "Depression and other traditional risk factors matter to the extent that they increase hopelessness and pain," Klonsky says. Second step, May and Klonsky suggest, are the suicidal thoughts that are stronger in people who have weaker ties with loved ones. Finally, they add that the suicide attempt will only occur amongst those people who have an ability to overcome fear of death, reported Science News