Time perspective and hopelessness feeling in the structure of internal forms of suicidal behavior

The article deals with the theoretical overview of the personality’s time perspective problem in its connection with the helplessness experience in patients with depressive disorders and suicidal behavior. It is analyzed some aspects of the psychological content of time perspective and hopelessness feeling in 37 patients seeking medical and psychological assistance due to phenomena of internal forms of suicidal behavior such as anti-vital feelings, suicidal thoughts or intentions. With the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) were verified that they have subdepressive symptoms and despair, hopelessness manifestations. Using techniques "Semantic Differential Time" and "Psychological Autobiography" it was shown that the time perspective in these patients in a hopelessness situation characterized by mostly pessimistic assessment of the present, which is projected into the future with a little more positive characteristics. At the same time the past is idealized and evaluated positively by all the psychological content factors of the time - his activity, emotional evaluation, structuring, mental stress degree and meaning fullness. Low degree of eventful life and patients’ realizing are conformed with the evaluation structure of psychological time in the future and sorted with projecting into the future actual for them depressive component of hopelessness, helplessness, despair and lack of the prospectivity. It is examined the patients tendency to autobiographically stand out more distant past events and near future events among all the events of psychological time. This tendency is associated with the importance for them of past experience and the future predicting complexity. It is shown that this “time perspective” techniques and algorithms can be used in the psycho-prophylaxis the risk of suicidal behavior.