Citation

Diggory JC. Crisis Interv. 1970; 2(4): 84-85.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1970, Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Measuring from the Phoenix Conference on "Suicide Prevention in the Seventies" we are entering the second decade of the "Suicide Prevention movement in this country. During the past ten years there has been a steadily rising tide of publications about suicide, some of which purport to present research findings. There is something about these "research" documents which strikes a more traditional researcher with a serious sense of malaise. There is a curious tentativeness about the commitment to research, the air that it is done with the back of the hand, while attention is on more serious problems. The alleged findings were more often used to shape the attitudes of the general public or foundations and government agencies than to guide suicide preventers to more effective methods. It is understandable that, with massive public and official ignorance and apathy to be overcome, some kind of propaganda was necessary at the beginning. But it is mystifying that there has been so little commitment of personnel and funds to improving our systematic understanding of suicidal individuals and the social and institutional contexts in which they act. There is little, if any, room in the Suicide Prevention movement for full-time researchers. Mostly research is done on a part-time basis by individuals who, by training and contract, are devoted principally to offering service. For suicide prevention this policy has led to the same difficulties it produced for clinical psychology in general: research done is what is feasible rather than what is needed; insufficient time is devoted to the development of fruitful ides; procedures are limited to familiar routines instead of being innovative; and inadequate amounts of data are subjected to inadequate analysis. It is fair to say that this state of affairs, pervasive and persistent though it is, is not the fault of any one individual or group. The fault lies with "the system" and the way we think about it. When it comes to the equally necessary, equally desirable, equally time consuming and difficult specialties of research and service we keep trying to use the old fashioned turn-of-the-century model of "clinical research" in which the physician or other "helping professional" compiled as much data as he had time to record on a "series" of cases, and when he could find the time he "wrote them up" by summarizing their outstanding features. This is a way to systematize experience, and such systematized experience is often a useful and sometimes necessary precondition of more profound knowledge. But it should require no great erudition to recognize the distinction between experience and knowledge. The little that we actually know about suicide is sufficient to suggest that the complexity of its causation and control far transcends the ability of any single individual, method, or discipline to comprehend.

There have always been two outstanding questions in the field of suicide prevention to which we still lack positive answers. The first of these is the problem of reliably identifying individuals who are going to commit suicide. Most research on this problem has concentrated on attempts to invent or discover a single easily understood and quickly used test, rating scale, or checklist which will identify with nearly infallible precision people who will kill themselves unless somebody stops them. The persistence which suicide preventers and their allies yearn for such an instrument is surprising. Why should one continue to search or wish for an instrument which is more infallible than any psychological measuring device has ever been, especially when our most powerful prediction methods are not used in the search? Psychological measurement has been used with great economic and social benefit in educational, military, and industrial settings despite the fact that in none of those instances has any test or...

Language: en