If you want to contact me, my e-mail is
lesterd@stockton.edu
or
david.lester@stockton.edu
Tuesday, December 07, 2021
Suicide Studies
Suicide Studies
I recently started “publishing” some of my essays and research in a self-published journal which I have called Suicide Studies. I published two issues in 2020, four in 2021, and already one for 2022. Some of the articles are not good enough for scholarly journals (especially since Psychological Reports changed hands and stopped accepting one-page notes). But another reason was that, at my advanced age, I no longer have the patience to deal with fussy editors and reviewers. I much prefer to let my co-authors deal with them.
The issues of Suicide Studies are loaded on to my website (www.drdavidlester.net) and also on ResearchGate.
However, this is not the first time I have had my own scholarly journal When I was working for the Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention Center in Buffalo [NY] during 1969-1971, I started my own journal called Crisis Intervention. My boss, Gene Brockopp, and I sent the issues free to every suicide prevention center in the USA at the time and to leading suicidologists. I published 4 issues each year, and also supplements. One of the supplements became the first edition of Why People Kill Themselves, published by Charles Thomas. The book had four editions. In addition, many of the essays in the journal were included in the manual for crisis interveners, also published by Charles Thomas as Crisis Intervention and Counseling By telephone {3 editions].
All of the issues of Crisis
Intervention (plus supplements) are also loaded on to my website.
Thursday, December 02, 2021
Aaron T. Beck
Aaron T. Beck
The Economist of November 13, 2021 contained an obituary for Aaron Beck, who died on November 1, aged 100. One has to be special to merit an obituary in The Economist, and Tim was special. In the late 1900s, almost every article on depression cited publications by Tim. The Beck Depression Inventory was and still is widely used in research and clinical settings. After Albert Ellis’s initial contribution, Tim was the major developer of cognitive therapies and, in addition, he made major contributions to suicidology.
I was fortunate to meet and work with Tim in the 1970s. He organized and hosted a symposium, closed to outsiders, which resulted in a book, The Prediction of Suicide, published in 1974. We published the Hopelessness Scale which, as of today, has 7,002 citations.
Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. The measurement of pessimism: the hopelessness scale. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 861-865.
We also worked together on papers suggesting how to overcome the problem of the use of substitute subjects in suicidology, that is, the use of attempted suicides to learn about those who died by suicide.
Lester, D., Beck, A. T. & Trexler, L. Extrapolation from attempted suicides to completed suicides. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1975, 84, 563-566.
Lester, D., Beck, A. T. & Mitchell, B. Extrapolation from attempted suicides to completed suicides: a test. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1979, 88, 78-80.
More
than this, Tim was an incredibly warm, modest and friendly person. The
Economist noted that “By the end of his life, nothing daunted his positive
outlook.” It was a pleasure and an honor to know Tim.
Saturday, August 21, 2021
Keeping up with research on suicide
KEEPING UP WITH RESEARCH ON SUICIDE
David Lester
My reviews of suicide research and theory spanned the years 1887 to 1997, and then I stopped because the volume of papers became too great if I wanted to peruse every paper, chapter and book on suicidal behavior. Retirement can be boring at times. Maybe I could take up my reviews in my retirement?
How many papers were published with suicid* in the title in 1998. PsycInfo gave me 571 items, PubMed 934 items, Sociological Abstracts 196 items, Criminal Justice Abstracts 73 items, Criminology Collection 136 items, and Business Source Premier 105 items.
That is why I stopped in 1997!
Thursday, August 05, 2021
Police officer suicides after the Capitol riot
Police Officer Suicides after the Capitol Riot
David Lester
On January 6, 2021, hundreds of people, urged on by Donald Trump, stormed the United States Capitol in Washington DC to prevent congress from certifying the election results. The Capitol and Metropolitan police departments were unprepared for this attack. The Capitol was breached, and massive damage occurred. The police officers there managed to protect the senators and members of congress from harm. However, the police officers were assaulted. During the riot, about 140 police officers were injured and, afterwards, 15 officers were hospitalized. So far, four police officers involved in protecting the Capitol have died by suicide. Only limited information is available on these four individuals.
Capitol Police Officer Howard
Liebengood on January 9. He was 51 and a 16-year veteran of the department. He
was married and had been a racing car driver before joining the Capitol Police.
Liebengood looked up to his father, Howrd S. Liebengood Sr., who served from 1981 to 1983 as Senate sergeant at arms,
charged with ensuring security in the Capitol and Senate buildings, as well as
protecting members of the Senate. After the riot, Liebengood was assigned to
lengthy shifts for the next three days and became sleep deprived. He killed
himself after the third shift.
Washington DC police officer Jeffrey Smith died by suicide by suicide on January 15. He was 35 and a 12-year veteran of the department. He shot himself with his service revolver in his car on the George Washington Parkway after being ordered back to work. At the riot, he was punched and hit in the head with a flying metal object (a metal pole). In subsequent days, he was assigned to guard a hotel, but he refused to remove his helmet for fear of being hit in the head. His sergeant sent him to the Police and Fire Clinic where he was prescribed ibuprofen and sent home. At the follow-up a week later (on January 14), there was no assessment made of his mental state. Smith had no history of depression or mental illness prior to the riot.
Washington DC police officer Kyle DeFreytag died by suicide on July 10. He was 26 years old and had been on the force for four years (since 2016) and was assigned to the department’s Emergency Response Team within the Special Operations Division. An online obituary for DeFreytag said he “liked hiking, camping, riding his motorcycle, he liked traveling and playing the drums, he enjoyed trying different ethnic foods and always knew the best places to eat…..Kyle was kind, he had a quick wit and a great sense of humor & kept us laughing for 26 years.”
Washington DC police officer Gunther Hashida, an 18-year veteran of the Washington DC department (since 2003), died by suicide at his home on July 29. Hashida was a Japanese American, with Japanese and German heritage. He had served in the military before becoming a police officer. He was 43 years old (almost 44), married (for 17 years) with three children. His wife was a licensed practical nurse who worked in oncology. He was assigned to the department’s Emergency Response Team within the Special Operations Division.
Speculations on These Suicides
There is very little information available on these four men and, therefore, we can only speculate about the causes of their suicides. Those responding to the attack reported physical abuse and racial slurs. The officers responding to the attack have reported severe psychiatric symptoms since the riot.
"Four law enforcement officers testified last week about their harrowing, and in some cases, near deadly experiences responding to the riot. “That day continues to be a constant trauma for us literally every day, whether because [of] our physical or emotional injuries or both,” Capitol Police sergeant Aquilino Gonell told a select committee investigating the attack." (Solender, 2021)[1]
It is clear that most of the police officers involved in the riot control have experienced full PTSD or symptoms of PTSD, a risk factor for suicide.
The police departments appeared to have had no provision for providing counselling and other treatments for their officers under stress. Ibuprofen is not a treatment for suicide risk! Hopefully, the departments have learned from this experience.
Only one report of the method used for suicide was found. Jeffrey Smith used a gun and was away from home. That is a typical scenario for police officers who die by suicide. (Car crashes are another common method.)
Hashida died by suicide at home, and the location of the other two suicides has not been reported. The location of the suicide is important. If Hashida, and perhaps the other two officers, died by suicide at home, then they would be discovered by their wife or children. If they shot themselves, then the scene would be extremely traumatic. (Hanging would also create a traumatic scene.) It is, therefore, interesting to ask (but not easy to answer for these particular suicides) why they chose to subject their family members to this trauma.
A final thought. Veterans who have
served in wars and other military operations are known to have a high suicide
rate after they return home. However, their suicide risk extends for years
after their return. These four suicides occurred soon after the riot, two in
fact within nine days of the riot. This high risk so soon after the traumatic
experience is noteworthy and important to know for those involved in suicide
prevention.
[1] www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/08/03/fourth-police-officer-who-responded-to-capitol-riot-dies-by-suicide/?sh=659ed9217d5b
Monday, June 28, 2021
Thoughts on who are the most influential suicidologists
June 28, 2021
9:30 am
THOUGHTS ON WHO ARE THE MOST INFLUENTIAL
SUICIDOLOGISTS
David Lester
There is a great deal of interest
these days on ranking the leading suicide researchers (as there is in other
fields). It is far from easy to make judgments about this issue.
Problems with Criteria for Greatness
The use of Google Scholar for
determining the top suicidologists is hindered by the fact that most
researchers explore topics other than suicide. For example, of my own 35 papers
published in 2020, only 22 were on the topic of suicide or related issues. To
take other examples, Thomas Joiner also studies eating disorders, while Steven
Stack studies marriage and many other topics. Therefore, the total citations,
h-index and i10-index are not accurate as measures of suicide research
productivity and influence for researchers with multiple interests.
The
titles of articles may also be misleading, with or without subtitles. Heidi Hjelmeland and Birthe Loa Knizek’s
article in Death Studies in 2021 has the title: The emperor’s new
clothes? A critical look at the interpersonal theory of suicide. The word suicide
is in the subtitle but not the title.
My most cited article (6,785 citations
as of June 25, 2021) is:
Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. (1974). The
measurement of pessimism: the hopelessness scale. Journal of Consulting
& Clinical Psychology, 42, 861-865.
This paper is
based on psychiatric patients who have attempted suicide, but the word suicide
does not appear in the title or subtitle.
Many researchers collaborate with
others, and some work in teams. How much credit should each author get for one
publication? Steven Stack and myself have published 16 articles and two books
together. Here is a recent contributor list from a recent article of mine
appearing in Psychiatry Research.
Conceptualization:
Isabella Berardelli
Data
collectiion: Salvatore Sarubbi, Elena Rogante, Denise Erbuto, Maria Rosaria
Cifrodelli
Formal
analysis: Salvatore Sarubbi, Marco Innamorati
Methodology:
Isabella Berardelli, Elena Rogante, Denise Erbuto
Project
administration: Maurizio Pompili, Isabella Berardelli
Supervision:
Marco Innamorati, David Lester Maurizio Pompili
Original
draft: Isabella Berardelli, Salvatore Sarubbi
Writing
- review; editing: Marco Innamorati, David Lester, Maurizio Pompili
Does
each contributor get one point for this article? In addition, in some
departments, the head of the department gets his or her name on the article
even if he or she did not contribute to it. Citation counts are also thought to be inadequate
unless one distinguishes between citations by others and citations of one’s own
works.
There are some scholars who focus on
one area of suicidology. For example, Andriessen, et al. (2015) identified the
ten most cited articles on bereavement after a suicide which were published in
(only) three core journals on suicide.
The era may be thought to play a role. Researchers who
were cited and influential in the 1950s may now no longer ever be mentioned.
Because the volume of studies of suicide has increased dramatically in recent
decades, so have citations. Perhaps the number of articles on suicide each year
should be used to weight citation amounts?
Personal
Judgments
Then, of course, we can make our own personal judgments.
I wrote reviews of the suicide literature from 1897 to 1997, trying to read
every scholarly article, chapter and book on suicide. The review was published
in four books with the title Why People Kill Themselves, covering the
periods 1897 to 1967, the 1970s, the 1980s, and 1990-1997 after which the task
became too time-consuming for me. Had I kept going, I would not have had enough
time to conduct my own research.
My choices were for greatness were:
1800s: Emile Durkheim, of course. I would also now add Sigmund Freud who
is responsible the theory of suicide as aggression directed toward the self,
what Shneidman has called murder in the 180th degree.
1950s: Andrew Henry and James Short (whose work has been relatively
ignored (except by me) but whose integrated theory (sociological plus psychological)
is quite remarkable.
1960s: Edwin Shneidman and Norman Farberow, of course, but also Charles
Neuringer for his ground-breaking work on the cognitive processes of suicidal
individuals, and Alex Pokorny for drawing attention to the role of climate and
other factors which had been neglected.
1970s: Aaron Beck and David Phillips. Phillips is rarely cited these days,
but his work on the role of the media was ground-breaking.
1980s: Antoon Leenaars for his work on suicide notes, Steven Stack for his
sociological studies, Stephen Platt for his work on unemployment, and David
Lester (myself).
It might be thought inappropriate to include myself, but
here is part of my Wikipedia entry.
His work on suicide has focused on (1) crisis intervention by
telephone, (2) preventing suicide by restricting access to the means for
suicide, (3) studies of the diaries left by suicides, (4) suicide in the
oppressed, including African American slaves, Native Americans, Holocaust victims,
the Roma, and prisoners, (5) reviews of research on and theory concerning
suicide from 1897 to 1997, and (6) innovative ideas including suicide as a
dramatic act, suicide and culture, and suicide and the creative arts.
Who would I choose for the 1990s? For the
period1990-1997, I chose no one. I did not think that any creative researcher
or theorist had appeared in those years. [1]
For the period 1998-2021, I have not kept up with the
literature, but I have written negative reviews on the state of the art in
suicidology (The End of Suicidology, Nova, 2019). From my limited
awareness of the suicidology literature (for 1897 to 1997, I was obsessive and
compulsive in my search and perusal of everything), I would choose
Thomas Joiner. There have been many critics of his theory and the domination by
his former students and by himself of research, but there was a novel feature
of the theory (the inclusion of burdensomeness), and there is no comparable recent
theory to compete with Joiner’s.
I would also choose Cas Soper whose writings are not well
known, but he has thrown down the gauntlet in his arguments against traditional
theory and research and argued for an evolutionary theory of suicide. In
addition, Jie Zhang has proposed a new theory of suicide and conducted some
major research studies in China.
Two of my close colleagues (John Gunn and Steven Stack)
also nominated Angus Deaton, Edward Klonsky, Matthew Nock, Rory O’Connor, and Ian
Rockett.
I may have missed an important figure or two, and each of
you may choose different researchers and theorists. (You would be wrong, of
course!)
Published
Lists
Expertscape
Expertscape (www.expertscape.com/ex/suicide ) based their
rankings for 22,043 articles published since 2008 and compiled as of February
3, 2019. However, Expertscape searches only medical journals (PubMed) and so
misses psychological and social sciences research. It is therefore, biased.
Omitted
27,568 lower-scoring
Apparently this list was based on simply the number of
articles published with suicide in the title. One assumes that they searched
for titles with suicid*. However, this list does not discriminate between
articles and editorials/comments. Several of those on the list carry out very
little research but, rather, publish brief comments on suicide (and other
topics).
Vogelzang, et al. 2011
Vogelzang, et al. (2011) search the Web of Science for
articles on suicide PLUS depression, which obviously limits the range of
articles on suicide, for the period 1900-2007. The top 15 researchers in order
of number of publications were:
JJ Mann
MA Oquendo
Y Conwell
J Lönnqvist
A Apter
DA Brent
CF Reynolds
HY Meltzer
HS Akiskal
K Hawton
RJ Baldessarini
A Roy
J Angst
V Arango
Clearly, this does not tap leading suicidologists. Only
some of those on this list contribute meaningfully to suicidology.
Ionnadis
The lists provided by Ioannadis (2016) do not focus on
suicide, but rather on all papers published by scholars. It is not easy, therefore,
to identify the suicidologists, and it is impossible to identify the scores for
only suicide research. Ionnadis ranks the top 2% of scholars in the world and
his c scores for the top ten on the Expertscape list are shown below:
Keith Hawton leads, with
Thomas Joiner second.
Web of Science
The Web of Science publishes the top 100 suicidologists
based solely on the number of articles on the topic. The top 10 are shown
below. I do wonder who anonymous is and how he or she is so prolific! The Web of Science appears to do the best job of capturing articles on suicide in all disciplines.
D Lester 1163
Anonymous 659
JJ Mann 470
K Hawton 370
M Pompili 314
G. Turecki 296
TE Joiner 295
D Gunnell 293
MA Oquendo 280
N Kapur 234
D De Leo 227
Comment
Of course, it would appear to be objective if greatness
could be quantified, but the numbers generated will always be criticized on
some grounds. For myself, I prefer the subjective method, that is, my own
evaluation of the contributions made by suicidologists!
References
Andriessen,
K., Krysinska, K., & Stack, S. (2015). Predictors of article impact in
suicidology. Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior, 45, 18-24.
Ioannadis,
J. P. N., Klavans, R., & Boyack, K. W. (2016). Multiple citation indicators
and their composite across scientific disciplines. PLOS Biology, 14(7): e1002501
Lester,
D. (1972, 1983, 1992, 2000). Why people kill themselves. Springfield,
IL: Charles Thomas.
Lester,
D. (2019). The end of suicidology. Hauppauge, NY: Nova.
Vogelzang,
B.H., Scutaru, C., Mache, S., Vitzthum, K., Quarcoo, D., & Groneberg, D. A.
(2011). Depression and suicide publication analysis, using density equalizing
mapping and output benchmarking. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine,
33(1), 59-65.
[1] For my proposals for
these eras, I am not sure that, today, in 2021, I would include all of those
listed above.
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