Does Psychological Flourishing Have the Potential to Mitigate Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors? A Preliminary Analysis of the Protective Influence of Flourishing

AIM: The purpose of this article was to examine whether psychological flourishing, a multi-dimensional construct of well-being, has the potential to play a preventative role in suicidal and nonsuicidal thoughts and actions. METHODS: = 50,307). RESULTS: Psychological flourishing is significantly inversely related to suicide and NSSI risk when controlling for loneliness and psychological distress. There were two-way interactions between flourishing and distress, whereby under conditions of high distress, the inverse effect of flourishing on suicidal ideation, intent, and attempts and NSSI was more pronounced. These results were consistent across both studies. Subgroup analyses revealed similar results regardless of participants' race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. CONCLUSION: Inverse associations between flourishing and self-injurious thoughts and behaviors suggest that flourishing may buffer risk of suicide and NSSI, and these findings may have important implications for developing evidence-based therapeutic interventions. Additional research, including longitudinal and clinical work, is warranted.