The horse is ready: We are building the cart

Comments on an article by B. Y. Saffer & E. D. Klonsky (see record 2018-04100-001). It is argued that the pursuit of accurate prediction models for suicidal behavior has proved to be daunting. As noted by Saffer and Klonsky in their citation of recent metaanalyses, 50 years of empirical research on psychopathological risk factors for suicidal thinking and suicidal behavior has given us a better sense of the origins of suicidal thinking, but not of the ultimate precipitants of actual suicidal acts. In this context, neurocognitive factors have emerged as potential contributors to these risk models, given that they appear to assess something other than standard psychopathological severity. Saffer and Klonsky review the potential contribution of the limited literature that currently exists on differences between suicide attempters and suicidal ideators and draw some tentative conclusions, but with the caveat that the data are at present sparse. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)