A neighbor of my sister is a doctor at a psych hospital north of Tel Aviv, and not too long ago I got into a discussion with her (the doctor) about this relationship between SSRIs and suicidal ideation and behavior. She said that she thinks it isn't really the medication that creates the ideation, etc., but that many severely depressed individuals, the ones at least that she sees in her hospital, are too depressed to act on anything, let alone suicide, and can't really be counseled. But the problem is, most SSRIs need 2-3 weeks to kick in completely (sometimes even longer) and what happens, is the medication starts to work and it gets them out of their near catatonia, but they are still really depressed, and can start to act on their feelings. So, there is a danger window between when the medication and counseling starts to have its effect but hasn't yet suppressed the underlying biophysical and biopsychological symptoms and factors.
She said that while she wouldn't say that there couldn't be instances where the SSRIs themselves were the overriding contributing factor, but that this case is even rarer than the data would suggest.
This is what she argued (as much as I can remember), at least.