JOURNAL

 

An open-access journal for research, clinical reflection, and practice-oriented writing about suicide.

UNDERSTANDING SUICIDOLOGY: RESEARCH & PRACTICE  ·  VOLUME 1  ·  ISSUE 7  ·  SEPTEMBER 2026

The Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI): From a Family of Ideas to a Testable Architecture

Matias Gay, RN  ·  Understanding Suicidology: Institute for Research and Practice

 

ABSTRACT

Background: The Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI) has developed through a dense family of conceptual, clinical, narrative, and methodological projects. That generativity created a second problem: the construct family grew faster than its boundaries were fixed. Purpose: To provide one public reference point for the current framework, state what is canonical, identify what remains developmental, and prevent clinical or scientific claims from outrunning the evidence. Approach: This editorial synthesizes the Stage 1 construct census, the ENSI 2.0 reduced-model specification, the ENSI 2.1 cross-genre refinement, and the Stage 2 measurement programme. Argument: The issue treats five anchors, five identity layers, five corresponding senses of self, temporal collapse, the Fractured Self Continuum, and the paired SPG/CsSD mechanism as the model’s present core. Character–Setting– Script is retained as a clinical formulation instrument and narrative autopsy as a method. Cross-genre modifiers and later extensions are explicitly status-labeled. Implications: The central contribution of this issue is not expansion but discipline: a reader should be able to tell what ENSI means, how each construct is operationally bounded, what can be asked clinically, and what still has to be demonstrated empirically.

Keywords: ENSI; suicidal identity; narrative identity; theory; measurement

Cite as: Gay, M. (2026). The Existential Network of Suicidal Identity (ENSI): From a Family of Ideas to a Testable Architecture. Understanding Suicidology: Research & Practice, 1(7). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24039606

Download the full issue (PDF)  ·  DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.24039606  ·  All issues

Published by Understanding Suicidology: Institute for Research and Practice, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Open access.