Would this worry a psychiatrist?

Not particularly, but they'd want to give your MC some kind of therapy for depression, I'd assume. Depression isn't something that designates insanity or even mental illness, it's a psychological problem that would be helped and solved through therapy and possibly medication.

Thanks. :) However, I more specifically meant because the thought seem as if they could be suicidal in nature. Would a psychiatrist take these thoughts seriously as some sort of threat to the character's well being? That sort of thing. :)

I think they'd test him before making any drastic decisions. You'd probably have a better chance of being committed if you have a certain depression score.

There's that, but then, they ask you questions. (Yay for experience.)
- "Have you attempted suicide before?"
- "Do you think about death a lot? How often?"
- "Have you thought about how you would kill yourself?"
- "Have you actually gotten together the supplies? Set a date?"

I've given really scary answers to the middle two, to a few different doctors, and they've sent me on my merry way. Surely they'd lock you up for the last one, though. But your character sounds fine on all of those.

"Have you attempted suicide before?" seems to be the clincher. What with your character saying "No" to everything else, I'd think the doctor would have no qualms about dismissing him. But I'm honestly wondering if there would be some kind of insurance company Standard Lockup Policy in place there. It seems like the people I've heard about ending up in the hospital... end up in the hospital repeatedly.

I have been told that wishing you were dead is not in the same class as actually wanting to do something about it. I expect any sensible pyschiatrist would be concerned (although psychs in general seem more concerned abouts meds; the therapist or counselor or psychologist would be the one most likely listening to his thoughts), and keep an eye on his depression, but they wouldn't have to report him as a danger to himself, yet.

It's not healthy state of mind to be in for very long, either way.

Proud Member of the Trebuchet Club!

Well, I'm not a professional, but I'm planning on going into psychiatry and I would DEFINITELY be worried.

A professional might be wary about letting on very much about the worry, though.

It's been years since I got my degree in psych but I'd say KristenS and Morganti have it summed up pretty well. Thoughts of suicide is actually pretty common (just ask any angst-ridden teenager) but it's the probability of it actually happening thats the clincher. Not all suicides are planned but I'd say many are. The fact that your MC is depressed is probably what would concern the psychiatrist/therapist most since depression can lead to suicide. Also, your MC's growing obsession with wishing to die would also be a concern but not enough to, say, hospitalize him. Now, if they found he was prone to impulsive behaviors then they may do so because he'd be posing a risk to himself. But most of this would be after some thorough questioning. Hope that helped.

You ask if a psychiatrist caught wind of this, would it worry him/her. There are exceptions to just about every rule. When I called a doctor to ask for Prozac because I thought it would help me deal with PMS, the doc asked if I was depressed. I said that yes, I was around that time of the month and even thought about killing myself. That doctor immediately put me on hold, called a psych and had that psych call me as soon as I hung up. That psych told me to drop whatever I was doing, get in my car and drive carefully to her office immediately. As it turned out, I have clinical depression and since I had been born that way, I did not know I was different than the average person. I thought everyone wanted to kill themselves on a regular basis. Almost daily, I took stock of all the medications we had in our house and tried to calculate how much of each one it would take to do the job.

Now let's say that your character is in the hospital recovering from his accident. He mentions to a friend or family member that he doesn't care if he lives or dies and because of that he doesn't know if he wanted the accident to happen or not. He questions whether it was, in fact, an accident. If a Psyh happened to be passing that door at that moment, I would expect them to report that to someone in charge or else look into the matter themselves. If that Psych is a particularly caring person who had not been in the business long and does not have a lot of clients, or perhaps he/she has a family member or a close friend who killed him/herself and the Psych has always felt that if someone had stepped in sooner that person could have been saved, then that particular Psych might decide to take this character on as a personal project, possibly hoping to somehow make up for not paying closer attention to the friend or family member who committed suicide.

Oooh! OR, if that Psych had a patient who killed him/herself because no one took his casual comments seriously and now the Psych is hyper sensitive to what patients say, the Psych might try to do something more drastic than usual like commit the patient or at least extend his stay in the hospital for various reasons.

Leah

Thanks for the responses, everyone! Sorry it took so long to reply. You've all been really helpful. :)