Positive life goals and plans in parasuicide

Abstract Parasuicidal individuals lack positive expectations about the future. This study set out to examine two aspects of positive future thinking—the ability to think of goals and the presence of cognitions related to achieving those goals, including plans, perceived control and perceived likelihood. Individuals who had recently engaged in an episode of parasuicide ( N = 24) were compared with matched, hospital controls ( N = 24) on a range of measures to assess number and type of goals, ability to think of plans to achieve goals, sense of control over goal outcomes, and perceived likelihood of achieving goals, as well as self‐report measures of hope, hopelessness, depression and anxiety. The two groups did not differ in the number of goals they could identify, especially after controlling for unemployment. The groups did differ in the quality of goals with the parasuicide patients' goals being less specific and more self‐focused in important goals, though these effects were confounded by group differences in employment status. Compared to controls, and after controlling for employment, parasuicide patients gave less specific plans, could think of more obstacles to achieving their goals and gave lower ratings of control and likelihood of achieving their goals. Parasuicide patients appear able to think of positive life goals but have clear problems in being able to think of how to achieve those goals. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.