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OBJECTIVE: Although life stress has been linked to adolescent suicidal ideation, most past research has been cross-sectional, and potential processes characterizing this relation remain unclear. One possibility may be a lack of emotional clarity. Informed by stress generation, the current study examined prospective relations between episodic life stress, lack of emotional clarity, and suicidal ideation in an adolescent clinical sample.METHODS: The sample consisted of 180 youths ( = 14.89;  = 1.35; 71.7% female; 78.9% White; 43.0% sexual minority) recruited from a psychiatric inpatient facility. Suicidal ideation severity was assessed at baseline and 18-month follow-up. Lack of emotional clarity and life stress were assessed at baseline, as well as 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Two random-intercepts cross-lagged panel models were created to estimate within-person relations for variables of interest.RESULTS: At the within-person level, lack of emotional clarity at baseline predicted greater 6-month impact of interpersonal dependent stressors (b = 0.29,  = .012, 95% CI [0.07, 0.52]), which subsequently predicted a greater 12-month lack of emotional clarity (b = 0.41,  = .005, 95% CI [0.12, 0.70]). Next, a 12-month lack of emotional clarity but not interpersonal dependent stress, predicted greater 18-month suicidal ideation (b = 0.81,  = .006, 95% CI [0.23, 1.30];  = .24,  < .001). No significant relations were found for the lack of emotional clarity and independent stress.CONCLUSIONS: Results support the stress generation hypothesis and suggest that future research should be conducted evaluating whether bolstering youth's understanding of their emotional experiences may reduce subsequent suicidal ideation.