With nearly a decade of frontline experience in mental health care, I have worked across acute inpatient psychiatry, emergency services, clinical education, and leadership. My clinical and academic work centers on advanced suicidology, with particular focus on high-risk conceptualization, acute suicidal states, and narrative-identity frameworks.
I provide specialized consultation, training, and education on the continuum of suicidality and self-injury. This includes individualized treatment planning for complex risk presentations, departmental education on crisis response, and structured training on ideation-to-action models. My approach integrates the latest empirical research with narrative and psychodynamic theory, supporting clinicians in applying critical thinking to formulate risk using evidence-based tools tailored to individual experience.
As a pioneer of Narrative Suicidology, I explore how personal meaning-making and identity structure influence the onset, maintenance, and resolution of suicidality. My work builds on the narrative-identity literature and bridges with Igor Galynker’s Suicide Crisis Syndrome (SCS), expanding into the construct of the Suicidal Narrative—a schema-driven mode of thinking that reflects entrapment, disconnection, and existential collapse. I developed the Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI), a psychodynamic and phenomenological model that maps the layers of the self—relational, existential, and narrative—as they unravel in the suicidal process.
Through this work, I aim to translate complex suicidological theory into meaningful language for clinicians, individuals with lived experience, and families navigating the crisis of suicidality. I have delivered workshops and educational training across hospital systems, universities, and community organizations throughout Nova Scotia, including guest lectures at Dalhousie University’s Schools of Nursing, Social Work, and Psychiatry. I have also presented nationally and internationally, including the American Association of Suicidology Conference, where I have received awards for my contributions and presentations.
My areas of specialization include:
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Ideation-to-action frameworks
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High-risk populations (youth, children, medically complex cases)
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Medicolegal and ethical considerations in suicide care
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Family and caregiver collaboration
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Indirect and nonverbal risk markers
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Lethality formulation and postvention
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Narrative and thematic assessment approaches
I have been published in national and international journals including CRISIS: The Journal of Suicide Prevention, CNA (Canadian Nurses Association), Families, Systems & Health, JPMHN, JAPNA, Mortality, Illness, Crisis & Loss, Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, and Death Studies. I serve as a peer reviewer for SAGE and other publishers, providing expert feedback on suicidology manuscripts. I was selected as part of Canada’s National Panel of Emerging Experts to inform the country’s National Strategic Framework on Suicide Prevention.
I am the author of the Applied Suicidology series on Amazon—seven clinical companion guides for advanced suicide risk assessment and intervention—and my first textbook, exploring Narrative Suicidology applications in depth, is forthcoming with Routledge. I am currently pursuing a fast-track MScN-to-PhD pathway, supported by national academic awards, with a focus on developing suicide theory grounded in nursing practice.
Education and Presentations
I actively teach through a manner of platforms which include:
as a guest lecturer at universities, hospital-based education seminars, virtual workshops and summits and conferences.
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American Association of Suicidology 58th National Conference, Ohio: Suicidal Countertransference: The Unconscious Language of Emotions
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American Association of Suicidology 58th National Conference, Ohio: Examining the Perceptions and Attitudes of Nova Scotia's Healthcare Workers Towards Suicidal Youth and Their Families
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American Association of Suicidology 57th National Conference, Las Vegas: The Narrative Crisis Model: An Empirical Framework for the Assessment of Suicidality
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IWK 2025 Quality Summit: Examining the Perceptions and Attitudes of Nova Scotia's Healthcare Workers Towards Suicidal Youth and Their Families.
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Dalhousie University Physician Community Training Program, Antigonish: Suicidality in Adolescence - Tools to Measure and Strategies to Mitigate the Risk
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Dalhousie University Department of Medicine Community Program: Suicidality in Adolescence - Tools to Measure and Strategies to Mitigate the Risk
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IWK Community Mental Health and Addictions: Understanding and Working with Suicide Narratives
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D'Youville University MScOT- Assessment for Capability and Capacity of Suicide
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Mental Health Academy Online Course Available for CE: Child & Adolescent Suicide-Risk Formulation
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Dalhousie University Faculty of Nursing and Social Work Studies Guess Lecturer: Formulating Suicide-Risk in Youth and Adolescents; Understanding Suicide from a Phenomenological Approach.
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IWK Community Mental Health Halifax Clinic: Exploring the Suicidal Narrative
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IWK Adolescent Intensive Services: Lethality Assessments and Interventions for Self-Injurious Behaviors.
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IWK Department of MHA Program Orientation: Child & Adolescent Suicide-Risk Implications
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Nova Scotia College of Social Workers National Day of the Child: Family Environment and Suicide Risk: How to foster Healthy Children.
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Nova Scotia Provincial Substance use Disorders Team: Applying the NCM for Suicide-Risk Formulation
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IWK Community Mental Health & Addictions Seminar: Multimodal Suicide-Risk Assessments for Clinical Practice
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IWK Acute Psychiatric Inpatient Nursing Continuing Education Workshop: Suicide-Risk Implications for Inpatient Psychiatric Settings
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IWK Pediatric Internal Medicine Grand Rounds: Understanding Suicide-Risk in Youth Populations
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IWK Pediatric Emergency Medicine Grand Rounds: Lethality & Suicide Risk in Emergency Settings: Using Evidenced-Based Practice to Inform Interventions
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Dalhousie University Psychiatric Grand Rounds: Introducing the Narrative-Crisis Model for Suicide Risk Assessment
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Dalhousie University R5 Psychiatry Seminar: Dynamic Child and Adolescent Suicide-Risk Formulation
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Dalhousie University Department of Social Work Master’s Seminar: Suicide Stress-Diathesis Model and Cultural Implications
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Dalhousie University Department of Social Work Bachelor’s Seminar: Understanding The Suicidal Narrative
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Dalhousie University Department of Nursing Bachelor’s Seminar: Child and Adolescent Suicide-Risk Implications
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HRM Police Victim’s Services Workshop: Bereavement Support, Suicide-Risk Screening & Occupational Risk of Public Safety Personal.
Publications
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Gay, M. (2024). Trait vulnerabilities and stressful life events: implications for youth suicide risk. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2024.2446331
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Gay M. (2025). Enhancing youth suicide prevention: The critical role of family involvement in screening, intervention, and postvention. Families, systems & health : the journal of collaborative family healthcare, 10.1037/fsh0000994. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000994
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Gay M. (2025). Storytelling in Care: Leveraging Narrative Identity and Suicide Narratives for Advanced Suicide Risk Assessments. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. 0(0). doi:10.1177/10783903251321502
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Gay, M. (2025). Suicide-risk implications in legalising medical assistance in dying for mental disorders. Mortality, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2025.2481265
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Gay, M. (2025). Enhancing person-centred care in suicide prevention: A nursing perspective. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpm.13168
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Gay, M. (2025, April 28). The Narrative Crisis Model: A new approach to understanding suicidality. Canadian Nurse. https://www.canadian-nurse.com/blogs/cn-content/2025/04/28/narrative-crisis-model
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Gay, M., Moniz, T., Bond, T., & Dorey, R. (2025). Examining the perceptions and attitudes of Nova Scotia's healthcare workers toward suicidal youth and their families. Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 46(2), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000998
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Gay, M. (2025). The Suicidal Clock: Temporal Constriction and the Chronological Collapse of Narrative Identity. Illness, Crisis & Loss, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10541373251350201
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Gay, M. (2025). Speaking to the self or others? Exploring existential, relational, and narrative identity in suicide notes using thematic and psychodynamic analysis. Death Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2025.2537975
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Gay, M. (2025). Reconstructing the final narrative: how psychological autopsies reconstruct the final narratives of youth across diverse sociocultural context. Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450128.2025.2539730
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Gay, M. (2025). Drowning in water: The existential tension between consciousness and suffering in David Foster Wallace. The Humanistic Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hum0000398
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Gay, M. (2025). Mapping Character, Setting, and Script: Clinical Applications of Narrative Identity in Suicide Prevention. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2025.2553170
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Gay, M. (2025). Integrating Models of Suicidality in Canadian Suicidology: A Literature Review. Canadian Journal of Emergency Nursing, 48(2), 22–40. https://doi.org/10.29173/cjen246
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Gay, M. (in press). Integrating Narrative Identity in Suicidology: A Clinical Exploration of Story, Identity, and Suicide. Routledge Publishing.
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Gay, M. (2025). Becoming death: A thematic analysis of identity fragmentation and suicidal goal formation in Sylvia Plath’s final writings. The Humanistic Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/hum0000403
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Gay, M. (2025). Feeling Risk: Countertransference-Informed Suicide Assessment in Nursing. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2025.2563644