> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getrivet.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # RFL — Brief Reasons for Living > A twelve-item inventory of protective factors against suicide across four subscales, scored 12–72, with higher meaning more reasons for living. The Reasons for Living inventory measures the other side of a risk assessment. Every instrument in a suicide assessment asks what pushes toward; this one asks what holds back. Twelve items, four subscales, and higher scores mean more protection. It's the brief version of Linehan's original 48-item inventory, and it sits in the crisis group alongside the [safety plan](/clinical-templates/crisis/safety-plan) for the same reason — both are what you reach for after a risk screen comes back positive. **The RFL asks the client directly to weigh reasons for not killing themselves.** The stem names suicide explicitly and repeatedly. Give it in a session where you can stay with what it raises. It is not an intake form and it is not a link to send to someone who will open it alone on a Sunday night. **A low score is not a risk score.** The RFL measures protective factors only. It does not measure ideation, intent, plan, means or history, and no total on it rules anything out. Administer it *alongside* a risk instrument — an [ASQ](/clinical-templates/specialized/asq), a [C-SSRS](/clinical-templates/clinician-administered/c-ssrs) — never instead of one. ## What it measures Protective factors — the reasons a person would not kill themselves — across four three-item subscales drawn from Linehan's original model. | Subscale | Items | What it covers | | --------------------------- | ----- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Survival and Coping Beliefs | 1–3 | Belief that other solutions exist, love of life, life as too precious to end | | Responsibility to Family | 4–6 | Family dependence, love of family, not wanting to leave grief or guilt behind | | Fear of Suicide | 7–9 | Fear of the act, of the unknown, of what happens after death | | Moral Objections | 10–12 | Religious or spiritual prohibition, moral wrongness, a higher power's authority | The four are clinically different in a way the total hides. Fear of Suicide is protective but brittle — fear can be overridden, and it isn't something treatment can build. Survival and Coping Beliefs and Responsibility to Family are the two that respond to clinical work and that safety planning can actually strengthen. ## When to use it * **After a positive risk screen.** The order matters: screen for risk first, then inventory what protection the client has to work with. * **Before building a [safety plan](/clinical-templates/crisis/safety-plan).** The subscales map onto the plan — Responsibility to Family points at Steps 3 and 4 (the people), Survival and Coping Beliefs points at Step 2 (internal coping). * **In DBT and other crisis-protocol work,** where reasons for living are an explicit treatment target rather than a background variable. * **When re-engaging after a near-miss or a hospitalization,** to find out which of the reasons is still standing. ## How clients fill it Five minutes to answer, and considerably longer to talk about — which is the useful part. The stem reads: > "Many people have thought of suicide at least once. Others have never > considered it. Whether you have considered it or not, we are interested > in the reasons you would have for NOT committing suicide if the thought > were to occur to you or if someone were to suggest it to you. On the > scale below, please rate the importance to you of each reason for NOT > killing yourself. Please rate EVERY item. 1 = Not at all important, > 2 = Quite unimportant, 3 = Somewhat unimportant, 4 = Somewhat > important, 5 = Quite important, 6 = Extremely important." All twelve items share six options: * Not at all important reason * Quite unimportant * Somewhat unimportant * Somewhat important * Quite important * Extremely important ## How Rivet scores it "Not at all important reason" scores 1 through to "Extremely important" at 6, with the options between running 2 through 5 in order. No items are reverse-scored. The total is the sum of all twelve items. Range: 12–72. **Higher means more protective** — the opposite direction from every risk instrument you'd administer alongside it, which is worth saying out loud when you read the two together. The four subscales are each the sum of their three items, so each runs 3–18. Rivet shows the total and all four subscales live in your scoring pill. ## Reading the score The RFL has no bands and no cutoff. It is a descriptive protective-factors measure, and there is no total above which a client is safe. What it's for is the shape, not the number. A client at 52 whose entire score sits in Fear of Suicide and Moral Objections has almost nothing in the two subscales that treatment can build on — that's a different clinical picture from a client at 52 spread evenly, and the total won't tell you which one you have. Read it item by item with the client. An item rated "Extremely important" is a specific, named thing to put into the safety plan. An item rated "Not at all important" that you'd have expected to matter is the more important conversation of the two. ## Clinical change No minimal clinically important difference is published for the RFL in the source Rivet scores it from. Re-administering it after a period of treatment tells you whether the reasons that were thin have thickened — read the subscales, not the total. Rivet shows current scores; comparison across administrations happens on the client's record. ## When NOT to use it * **As a risk assessment.** It is not one. See the warning above. * **As an async link.** The stem asks about suicide directly. This one is filled with you in the room. * **In an acute crisis.** A client in the middle of it needs stabilization and immediate care, not a twelve-item inventory. Give it during a stable period — the same rule that applies to building a safety plan. * **Before you've asked about risk at all.** Asking someone to rate reasons for not killing themselves without having first asked whether they're thinking about it is the wrong order of conversation. ## RFL-12 vs the suicide risk screens The RFL-12 is not a risk screen and using it as one would be a mistake. It measures the opposite thing: reasons a person has for staying alive, across survival and coping beliefs, responsibility to family, fear of suicide, and moral objections. Higher is more protective. There is no cutoff. Risk screening is what the [C-SSRS](/clinical-templates/clinician-administered/c-ssrs) does — it grades ideation from a wish to be dead through to a plan with intent, and asks about behaviour in the past three months. The RFL-12 earns its place *after* a positive screen. Once you know risk is present, it tells you which protective beliefs the client still has access to — and that maps directly onto what a [safety plan](/clinical-templates/crisis/safety-plan) should lean on. A client whose only intact domain is responsibility to family needs a different plan from one whose survival and coping beliefs are largely intact. The [MSPSS](/clinical-templates/screening/mspss) sits alongside it and measures something adjacent but distinct: perceived support available now, rather than protective belief. ## Is it free to use? **Yes, for non-commercial clinical and research use.** Per Linehan's original publication. ## Citation Linehan, Goodstein, Nielsen & Chiles (1983). *Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,* 51: 276–286 — the original 48-item Reasons for Living Inventory. Ivanoff, Jang, Smyth & Linehan (1994). *Journal of Personality Assessment,* 63: 413–433 — the brief form. Free for clinical and research use, under the non-commercial licence from the 1983 publication. ## Related articles The six-step collaborative plan the RFL subscales feed directly into. The risk-side assessment to administer alongside this one. The four-question suicide-risk screen that typically comes first. Perceived social support — the other protective-factor measure in the library.