by: lynn giesbrecht
when kelsey vig first considered studying suicidal ideation, she hesitated.
after losing a family member to suicide in 2010, she wasn’t sure if the topic was something she wanted to spend her days talking about and researching.
vig, who is a phd candidate in clinical psychology at the university of regina, had the idea of studying the impacts of exercise on people experiencing thoughts of suicide. it was suggested to her by her supervisor, u of r psychology professor gord asmundson.
the research project would fit well into her own interests, but still she wasn’t sure. her mind changed, however, the more she worked with more people having experiencing suicidal ideation.
“i realized it doesn’t really need to be that scary. i think a lot of people are quite hesitant to research it or even talk about it. i think people think that suicidal ideation is quite extreme, and if someone’s thinking about it, there’s a very, very real chance that they will die by suicide and that’s not really the case,” vig said in a recent interview.
“as i kind of came to those realizations, i got a lot more interested in this line of research and noticing just how much of a gap there is in treatments specifically for suicidal ideation, and so i really wanted to be able to look at that and hopefully help fill some of the gaps.”