Thursday, March 14, 2019 at 9:00AM
Why People Die by Suicide
In his new theory of suicidal behaviour, Thomas Joiner, PhD proposes three factors that mark those most at risk for suicide: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, perhaps chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself. He tests the theory against diverse facts taken from clinical anecdotes, history, literature, popular culture, anthropology, epidemiology, genetics, and neurobiology - - facts about suicide rates among men and women; white and African-American men; individuals with anorexia, athletes, sex workers, and physicians; members of cults, sports fans, and citizens of nations in crisis.
Learning Objectives:
- To review basic facts about the epidemiology and risk factors for death by suicide
- To learn about a new theory of suicidal behavior
- To learn about anecdotal, clinical, and scientific evidence that evaluates this new theory
- To learn about approaches to suicide risk assessment
- To learn about developments in the treatment of suicidal behavior
- To learn about developments in suicide prevention
- To understand the experience of people who are bereaved by suicide
About Thomas Joiner, PhD
Thomas Joiner grew up in Georgia, went to college at Princeton, and received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He is The Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University (FSU), Tallahassee, Florida. Dr. Joiner’s work is on the psychology, neurobiology, and treatment of suicidal behavior and related conditions. Author of over 640 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Joiner is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal /Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior/, and was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Residency Fellowship. He received the Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the Shakow Award for Early Career Achievement from the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association, the Shneidman Award for excellence in suicide research and the Dublin Award for career achievement in suicide research from the American Association of Suicidology, and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions from the American Psychological Association, as well as research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, Department of Defense (DoD), and various foundations.The Lawton Professorship and the Dublin Award are the single highest honors bestowed, respectively, by FSU and the American Association of Suicidology. In 2017, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He was a consultant to NASA’s Human Research Program, and is the Director, with Pete Gutierrez, Ph.D., of the DoD-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium, a $30 million project. The effort was recently extended for a second five-year phase at a similar funding level.
Dr. Joiner has authored or edited eighteen books, including Why People Die By Suicide, published in 2005 by Harvard University Press, and Myths About Suicide, published in 2010, also with Harvard University Press. The book Lonely at the Top was published by Palgrave MacMillan in October, 2011, and the book The Perversion of Virtue: Understanding Murder-Suicide was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. The book Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism, came out in 2017, also from Oxford. Largely in connection with Why People Die By Suicide, he has made numerous radio, print, and television appearances, including write-ups in The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London, a radio interview on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and two appearances on the Dr. Phil Show. He runs a part-time clinical and consulting practice specializing in suicidal behavior, including legal consultation on suits involving death by suicide. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife and two sons, the elder of whom is an FSU senior and the younger of whom will be an FSU freshman.