Facing suicide risk is probably the most difficult task for clinicians when dealing with patients in crisis. It requires professional, intellectual, and emotional efforts. Suicide risk assessment can sometimes be distressing for clinicians, and such a state may favour the avoidance of an in-depth exploration of suicidal thoughts and behaviour. Patients often feel subjected to interpersonal assessments with little opportunity to explore their perspectives. The "One size fits all" approach tends to create distance and paradoxically contributes to an increase in the risk of suicide. Traditional clinical factors may be of limited value if a shared understanding of the patient's suicide risk is missed. To understand the suicidal mind, it is necessary to take the point of view of the subject in crisis. In this presentation, the "operational model of mental pain as a main ingredient of suicide" is explored to test if it could be associated with a recent suicide attempt and whether childhood traumatic experiences could be related to mental pain in psychiatric patients. Results from a multi-center observational study will be discussed in light of the fact that suicide attempters (compared to non-attempters) reported higher odds of reporting worse psychological pain and suicidal intent with/without a specific plan.. In this regard, the "mentalistic" aspects of suicide propose a broader insight into the suicidal scenario far beyond the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders. In this presentation, the perspective of individuals who deem their mental pain to be intolerable is described to make sense of their ambivalence between the wish to die and the wish to live that can prevail if relief is provided.