From left, Norman Farberow and Robert Litman

[Editor's note: I apologize for being late in reporting on the passing of one of the founders of the first suicide prevention crisis center in America. FJC]

An announcement of the Feb. 14 death of Dr. Robert Litman — at age 88, of acute leukemia — came to the membership of the American Association of Sucidology in a letter from the organization’s executive director, Lanny Berman:

Bob was co-director and chief of psychiatry at the Institute for Studies of Destructive Behaviors and the Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles, a pioneer in the development and implementation of the psychological autopsy (with Ed Shneidman and Norman Farberow), and one of this country’s first and foremost forensic suicidologists … Bob’s psychoanalytic perspective and research interests ranged from the study of equivocal suicides, to the study of bondage deaths, to Freud’s contributions to our understanding of suicide. Norm Farberow described Litman as, “a free spirit cloaked in psychoanalytic trappings, always intellectually adventuresome and inquisitive.” This, and much, much more, he surely was.

In Litman’s obituary, Los Angeles Times reporter Valerie J. Nelson writes,

The idea for a suicide prevention center came from two Veterans Administration psychologists, Edwin S. Shneidman and Norman L. Farberow, who persuaded Dr. Litman, over drinks in Beverly Hills, to help establish it. Then director of the psychiatric unit at what is now Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Litman had written a paper on how to deal with suicide on a hospital ward. His interest in the subject was sparked by the death of his high school best friend, Thomas Heggen, who wrote the book and play “Mister Roberts” and whose death in 1949 was ruled a probable suicide. Although worried that the response to the proposed suicide center would be overwhelming, Dr. Litman signed on.

Related SPNAC posts:

• “Edwin Shneidman’s Meditations on Death Are Full of Life” on March 1, 2009 at http://tinyurl.com/ShneidmanMeditations
• “Suicide Prevention Pioneer Edwin Shneidman Dies at 91″ on May 18, 2009 at http://tinyurl.com/PreventionPioneer

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/LitmanObit .]

By Franklin Cook, SPNAC Editor

I consider Friday’s episode of the Dr. Phil Show — titled “Teens Under Pressure” — a case study of sorts, for it shows that a constructive dialogue is occurring among suicide prevention experts, communities, and the media. The process that shaped the show’s content could be an indication that community-focused suicide prevention is gaining traction in America.

Here is what happened:

Enter the media. A series of suicide fatalities strikes a high school on the West Coast, and a flurry of media coverage follows. Then the double suicide of two high school girls in the East makes the news in a big way, locally and nationally. As one might expect, the Dr. Phil Show plans a television program on the topic of suicide.

Enter the community. When the show’s senior producer contacts the West Coast town to invite people to participate in the program, city officials respond enthusiastically — not about participating but about the possible causal link between media coverage of suicide and suicide contagion.

In a follow-up e-mail to Senior Producer Astra Austin, [a city official] representing “Project Safety Net,” said there are two primary concerns about the planned Dr. Phil program.

The first is that it could contribute to “suicide contagion” following the deaths of four Gunn students since last May, and the second is that the program could “perpetuate the myth” that stress and suicide are tightly connected.

“[This] is a community at high-risk for more suicides due to suicide contagion,” [he] said in the e-mail. “Our most vulnerable teens (those perhaps with previous attempts or who are under medical care) need our protection right now — and will for some time.”

“Please understand our reluctance to participate in the show should not suggest a reluctance to confront or deal with this issue. On the contrary, the … community is working together, tirelessly, publicly, and carefully on this issue.”

Enter the suicide prevention experts. The community’s communication with the TV producer amounts to a mini-workshop on suicide contagion, packed with a well-chosen array of top-quality, up-to-date information and resources, all based on the research and expertise of organizations such as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the American Association of Suicidology.

The outcome: The content of Friday’s Dr. Phil Show clearly demonstrates that the producer and the others involved in creating the episode heard the community and tried to follow the guidelines provided by the suicide prevention experts. I have some concerns about several elements of the show (such as how people grieving from the fatalities are addressed), and the jury is certainly still out on the effects of national media coverage such as this on contagion. Those issues notwithstanding, I believe it is extremely important to affirm that this instance of the media’s coverage of suicide represents a rare collaboration among people working to cover an important news story, people in the field of suicide prevention, and people in a community that has been directly affected (I might say traumatized) by recent suicides.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/DrPhilEpisode .]

[Editor's note: In a SPNAC post last year, "Iraq Vet and Teen Say 'Thank You' to Lifeline via Avatars," it was mentioned that "Dr. Phil shared a suicide prevention message through his avatar on the Lifeline Gallery.]

Other related SPNAC posts:

• “Preventing Suicide by Train Gets Attention of Research” on February 10, 2010 at http://tinyurl.com/TrainResearch
• “Palo Alto Volunteers Act Boldly against Teen Suicides” on December 2, 2009 at http://tinyurl.com/PaloAltoSuicides
• All SPNAC posts in the “Media” category can be accessed using the “Themes” pulldown menu at the bottom of the page.

Marcia Epstein lost her mother, Abba Howell (pictured on the right in the snapshot Marcia is holding), to suicide in 2003. (Thad Allender, Lawrence Journal-World)

[Editor's note: "Links to Suicide Grief Stories ..." is a SPNAC series featuring stories of survivors of suicide loss -- about the effect their loved one's suicide has had on them and how they are coping with their grief. FJC]

In “Crisis Counselor Shares Survivors’ Grief,“ reporter Chad Lawhorn writes about Marcia Epstein, whose mother died by suicide in 2003. Epstein has been the director of the Headquarters Counseling Center in Lawrence, Kansas, since 1979.

“When I think about suicide, what I think about is the sadness that this person thought there was no other choice … Every day we get the kinds of calls that are so intense that we know the person on the other end of the line could die this day,” Epstein said.

“The call may start off where the person is 95 percent sure that they’re going to kill themselves. But you have to remember that there’s a little bit of hope there because they called. Our job is to ratchet up that hope.”

And to talk. Epstein’s perpetual message is that there’s always help available, always someone ready to listen. (Lawrence Journal-World)

The article is accompanied by a companion story, Call of Duty.

From left, Justin Rosniak, Samuel Johson, and Simon Lyndon star in Brendan Cowell's hit play "Men." (Melbourne Herald Sun)

In “No Longer a Man in a Hurry,” Senior Arts Writer Robin Usher reviews the play Men, which stars Samuel Johnson, whose girlfriend died by suicide in 2006.

“I was born to play this role,” [said Johnson.] “It’s a very personal thing for me, but I’m finding it cathartic to channel my own situation into something else.”

[After his girlfriend died,] Johnson stopped working as an actor to avoid the media spotlight and sought counselling over his drug and alcohol abuse. “I came out of it with a bunch of ways to combat my addictive nature. I didn’t realise the extent of my problems until everything fell to pieces. I was an addict before Lainie [Woodlands] died but that gave me an excuse to go harder.” (The Age [Australia])

In ““J. Kyle Braid Ranch Teaches Leadership Skills to Teenagers,“ reporter Kevin Hoffman writes about Ken and Colleen Braid, whose son Kyle died by suicide in 1994 when he was 17 years old. The Braids founded the ranch “to perfect leadership skills found in responsible, dedicated teenagers.”

Teens between their sophomore and junior years of high school come from throughout the United States to the leadership camp after selection by teachers and peers. The Braids acknowledge peer groups have the greatest influence on teens and can make a positive impact by creating responsible leaders.

“It taught me how to really work with people and it changes your life,” [said one former student]. (The Mountain Mail [Salida, Colo.])

In “Riding for Life,” reporter Brad Meyer writes about David Alexander, whose daughter died by suicide

in 2008 when she was 17 years old. The Michigan man is bicycling across the country “‘to talk to people about Angela, her life and her suicide. It [is] an opportunity to tell people how important it is to communicate with people in their lives.’”

In May 2009, Alexander set off on a road bike with a small trailer holding minimal supplies to tell his story to local newspapers, TV stations, and individuals wherever he goes. He carries with him several volumes of newspaper clippings and journals he has kept throughout his trip. He asks every person he encounters to write a brief comment in his journals as a means of including them in his effort. (The Courier [Houston, Texas])

In “Smiling While Singing the ‘Blues,’”” features reporter Kerstin Gupilan writes about Stacy

Stacy Merlos

Merlos, who joined the CSUN Blues Project after a close friend and fellow student, Dylan Miles, died by suicide. The project “spread[s] awareness about depression and suicide as well as inform[s] students of the counseling services CSUN offers.”

“[Blues] helped me to deal with what I was feeling. I closed myself off,” she said. “[My friend who died by suicide]He [Miles] is such a big part of my presentation, the video really hits home.”

Before his death, Merlos remembers seeing signs of depression in Miles and even joking with him about his psychological state of mind. During that time Merlos had no real direction in how to handle Miles’ depression. Now, aspiring to become a marriage and family counselor, Merlos hopes to one day help those experiencing depression and suicidal thoughts. (Daily Sundial [California State University Northridge])

In “My Best Friend Ended Her Life at 37,” Lea Lane writes about her loss, focusing on her understanding of depression as an illness.

About a year before she died, Delia became gaunt, her eyes haunted. She was seeing a psychiatrist, and on meds, but appeared lost and frightened. She told me she felt like she was in “a dark hole.” She said there was nothing I could do. She doubted everything she did.

[After she killed herself,] I called her friends, who didn’t believe me. “She had everything,” they said. “Why would she take her life?”

They were trying to find a reason. But depression can be a terminal disease. There is no “reason,” any more than getting a heart attack or cancer has a reason. (Huffington Post)

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/GriefStories09 .]

By Franklin Cook, SPNAC Editor

I have worked in suicide prevention and suicide grief support for a little more than a decade, and for the past year and a half (since the SPNAC blog was launched), I’ve scanned hundreds of articles on this tragic subject. In the course of my encounters with what is said and written in communities across the country and on the Internet, I have been subjected about a thousand times to the declaration “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” and I cannot hear it one more time without crying out: Please stop saying that!

I know that it must seem like a clever and even a helpful thing to say (or else why would people have kept saying it, right up to the point where it has become nothing less than a cliche but with the power, I’m afraid, of an axiom). The declaration seems clever, I suppose, because it has the pleasant sing-song rhythm of an advertising jingle, like “I am stuck on Band-Aid, ’cause a Band-Aid’s stuck on me.” And it seems helpful because, of course, it is true: Indeed, suicide is a permanent solution.

But here’s why I argue that we should stop saying it:

The statement violates the age-old principle that what we communicate ought to be designed specifically with a focus on the audience for whom the particular communication is intended. “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem” might strike someone who is not suicidal as a clever statement, and it might be a helpful thing to hear from the point of view of someone who already believes (or is likely to be convinced) that his or her problem is temporary. But the audience for this anti-suicide ditty is, of course, people who are suicidal.

As Edwin Shneidman points out in his Ten Commonalities of Suicide, “The common purpose of suicide is to seek a solution.” So emphasizing to a suicidal person that suicide is a permananet solution is as likely to be unhelpful — or even harmful or dangerous — as it is to be helpful.

The problem a suicidal person is trying to solve, according to Shneidman, is how to escape from psychache, which Shneidman defines as “intolerable emotion, unbearable pain, unacceptable anguish … [that] cannot be abated by means that were previously successful” (emphasis added). In other words, from the point of view of someone who is earnestly considering killing himself or herself, the pain from which suicide would provide escape is not temporary.

Even though the perception that the pain is permanent is not accurate, the strategy of trying to convince a suicidal person that his or her pain is temporary is as likely to be counter-productive as it is to be productive.

For one thing, a suicidal person might be irrational regarding the subject of whether his or her pain is permanent or temporary. Irrational might not be the right word for it, but what lies at the core of many suicidal people’s dilemma is that the usual cognitive tools we rely on — such as reason or logic — are not available to them in their battle with their dark, self-destructive thoughts. So relying on a logical explanation of the nature of their pain to “convince” them of something could be ill-advised both because it might be fruitless and it might be seen as argumentative (“Your pain is temporary.” “No it’s not.” “Yes it is.”)

In addition, saying, “Look, your pain is only temporary,” might minimize or negate the importance or validity of the person’s feelings, sending the message that he or she is wrong about the nature or value of the pain. It also might be taken as judgmental or condescending (the speaker knows what pain is really like, but the suicidal person is mistaken about it). Finally, it might oversimplify the ultimate solutions to the underlying problems that are causing the person’s pain, for the jingle suggests, in part, that if a person would merely believe that his or her problem is temporary, then all would be well.

Perhaps I think too much about this sort of thing, for in fact, I could write an entire post, as well, on the use of the phrase completed suicide. The field “invented” the phrase, so the story goes, to replace successful suicide because successful is a positive term describing a negative event (we don’t want to characterize a suicide attempt as being “successful” when someone dies and as “failed” when someone lives). But if the word successful has positive connotations, isn’t it starkly obvious that the word completed has them, too, just as much or even more so? We don’t say “completed heart attack” or “completed automobile accident,” we say “fatal,” and that’s what we ought to say with suicide, as in suicide fatality or either fatal or non-fatal sucide attempt.

It is true generally of all communication, but it is absolutely vital when it comes to messages about suicide that we think before we speak.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/SuicidePermanent .]

• Other recent SPNAC opinions:
• “Primary Care Depression Screening Would Save Lives” on February 8, 2010 at http://tinyurl.com/DepressionScreening
• “One Man’s Death Offers Insight into Humanity and Suicide” on February 19, 2010 at http://tinyurl.com/HumanityAndSuicide
• “Antidepressants Aren’t the Problem, Marketing Them Is” on February 26, 2010 at http://tinyurl.com/AntidepressantMeds

Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Wimmer's daughter Alex holds her sister, Mi-Na, at his grave. (McClatchy-Tribune Information Services)

In “Military Suicides Are Causing Civilian Casualties, Too,” McClatchy Newspapers Regional Correspondent Halimah Abdullah writes that, when it comes to suicide in the military, “the numbers don’t tell the whole story.”

Long after the flag-draped coffins are lowered into the ground, families … are left to measure their grief in a seemingly endless stretch of days marked by missed birthdays, anniversaries, weddings and babies’ first steps.

“I think we need to realize that we have families that are under such great stress,” Deborah Mullen, the wife of Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told more than 1,000 military and federal health care workers at a suicide prevention conference in January. “This stress is only going to continue. We need to be able to give tools to family members who are left behind.”

The McClatchy story focuses on the family of Army Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Wimmer, who died last summer at Fort Benning, Ga., after a long, downward spiral into depression.

“From the moment I met him, I knew he suffered from issues of depression,” [said his widow, Jennifer Wimmer]. “When I told him that he needed to get some help, he said, ‘I can’t do that. It will damage my career.’”

Jennifer did everything she could to help her husband, and eventually his depression and suicidal behavior came to the Army’s attention, and Sgt. Wimmer was hospitalized at one point and was later encouraged to take an extended leave of absence to get additional help. But in the end,

Daniel Wimmer’s suicide ripped a hole in the gossamer fabric of his family’s life. His wife used to sit in his truck for hours, inhaling his fresh-out-of-the-shower scent, which still lingered on the seats. She finally sold the truck, no longer able to bear the reminder of how it often spirited him away from her.

His oldest daughter Sara, 15, puts on a brave front and tries to help her mother with the younger children. His middle daughter, 8-year-old Alexandra, is angry and often sleeps with his shirt at night to console herself and writes poetry and songs about her dad.

“As long as a soldier does his job, everything is good, then when something like this happens the family is chastised, too, and it’s like, ‘Well, what did she do? How could she have prevented this? Spouses are looked at very harshly,” Jennifer Wimmer said.

“It hurts me more because I was so proud to be married to my husband, and he was such a dedicated, decorated soldier. I still believe in our Army, our military. But it hurts.”

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/MilitaryWidow .]

Related SPNAC posts:

• Feb. 16, 2010 — “Family’s Journey Emblematic of Military Suicide Survivors” — http://tinyurl.com/RuoccoFamily
• May 25, 2009 — “TAPS Reaches Out To Military Families Grieving after Suicide” — http://tinyurl.com/TAPS-reaches
• Apr. 5, 2009 — “Military, Veteran Stories Focus on Personal Impact of Suicide” — http://tinyurl.com/PersonalImpact
• Mar. 24, 2009 — “Culture of Stigma Is a Key Cause of Military, Veteran Suicides” — http://tinyurl.com/StigmaMilitary

Tekekekuithia Peters looks at photos in her home of Bruce Edmonds and other members of the Mount Currie community. (Andrew Medichini, The Associated Press)

In “A Suicide Reveals Despair in the Olympic Shadow,” Associated Press National Writer Joji Sakurai tells the story of native artist Bruce Edmonds, who was “commissioned to carve the pale-gold cedar doors for the athletes’ lodge at Olympic Park in Whistler.” But Edmonds “would never get to see the visitors from around the world marveling at his handiwork, or witness how they interpreted a symbol of his Lil’wat heritage,” for Edmonds died by suicide “on a cloudy afternoon three days before the opening ceremony.”

As the world prepares to say goodbye to Vancouver, Edmonds’ story thrusts into harsh relief the struggles of this community, just a half-hour away from glamorous Whistler, the resort where Olympic Alpine and other events were based. Unemployment here runs at more than 80 percent. Drug and alcohol abuse are rampant and open. The darkened windows of flimsy shacks and trailers show electricity to be a precious commodity. And many here bitterly complain that the Olympics — which highlighted western Canada’s aboriginal culture in their opening ceremony — are being held on land stolen from them. Edmonds’ life and death illustrate how difficult it is for even one of the most promising members of the community to break free from the problems that have long troubled it.

The story covers Edmonds’ death through candid interviews with everyday people in the Mount Currie community who knew him well, drawing a picture of a troubled person whose passing is presented as a symbol of the troubling realities of colonization’s aftermath.

Senior provincial officials acknowledge deep problems in aboriginal communities, laying blame largely on a history of taking away native land and state-sponsored disenfranchisement. But some say progress was being made, with Olympic showcasing of aboriginal traditions playing a strong role in the healing process.

“We see wide and unacceptable gaps,” said George Abbott, British Columbia’s minister for aboriginal relations. He cited high levels of illiteracy, catastrophic rates of diabetes, chronic unemployment, drug abuse and criminality.

The squalor of the Mount Currie community is overwhelming: Backyards are turned into graveyards for mattresses spouting rusty springs and burnt-out trailers. Homes are built of flimsy plywood that still bear the manufacturer’s mark.

Still, even with progress, those gaps are unlikely to be erased soon. When the Olympics pack up and leave, it will be for the Lil’wat community almost as if they had never taken place.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/SharpContrast .]

Related SPNAC post: “Youth Suicide among Native Americans Linked to Colonialism,” Feb. 9, 2009, at http://tinyurl.com/LinkColonialism

By Franklin Cook, SPNAC Editor

The topic of cyber-bulling and suicide deserves thoughtful consideration, and I would like to contribute to the dialogue by pointing to a few resources for the general reader that I have found to be informative:

• Because it is important to understand that cyber-bullying is bullying, I recommend the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ site on the general topic, “Stop Bullying Now!” (which has a portal designed for kids and a special cyber-bullying section).
• One of the most comprehensive discussions of cyber-bullying on a single (very long) page is Education Week’s transcript of an Oct. 10, 2008 online discussion, in which numerous educators ask very good questions that are answered in-depth by Sameer Hinduja and Justin W. Patchin, authors of the book Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying.
• Hinduja and Patchin also founded the Cyberbullying Research Center, and I would recommend its main resource page, which contains everything from fact sheets to prevention tips as well as a parent-child Internet-use contract and a bibliography of scholarly articles on the topic.
• The presentation “Demystifying and Deescalating Cyber Bullying in the Schools” is truly an everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know resource in about 30 slides, by Barbara Trolley, Constance Hanel and Linda Shields, authors of a resource guide with the same title.
• Finally, for practical advice, try the “Stop Cyberbullying” website, where there is solid information on every aspect of cyber-bullying, organized by the folks at Wired Safety, which claims to be “the world’s largest Internet safety, help and education resource.” Of special note is the self-help tool designed for young people who need guidance if they are being cyber-bullied.

I offer the above list of resources in part because I am hesitant about posting very much direct news coverage of cyber-bullying — especially of particular cases that are reported in the media — even as there have been numerous news reports connecting suicide fatalities to cyberbullying over the past several years. SPNAC’s coverage of the issue began when a connection between Megan Meier’s suicide and her online harrassment by an adult became international news. At that time, I took a decidedly reserved approach, which resulted in only a few posts (and I think they contain a number of hyperlinks pointing to very good resources on basic information about cyber-bullying that add to the list above).

My initial posts on the topic focused on the court’s conclusions in the Meiers case,

• “Verdict Shows Parents, Internet Should Both Protect Kids” at http://tinyurl.com/ProtectChildren and
• “Judge Overturns Verdict in Cyber-Harrassment Case” at http://tinyurl.com/OverturnsVerdict, in which I tried to distinguish between cyberbullying (child-to-child behavior) and cyber-harrassment (involving an adult perpetrator).

I also hoped to provide some helpful information about cyberbullying in

• “Cyberlaws Are Coming into Play around Internet Safety” at http://tinyurl.com/NetSafetyLaws;

covered the story of a suicide survivor turned advocate in

• “Father Crusades against Cyberbullying after Son’s Suicide” at http://tinyurl.com/FatherCrusades; and

attempted to be ironic with a headline based on an “expert’s” quote in

• “Cyberbullying not epidemic … not killing our children” at http://tinyurl.com/CyberbullyingNot.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/ThinkCarefully .]

By Franklin Cook, SPNAC Editor

I’ve been reading a lot lately about antidepressant medications, with the idea that I was going to summarize some of the recent debate about whether they are part of the problem or part of the solution regarding suicide. But I have abandoned the idea of writing a summary such as that in this small forum because, for one thing, some of the “debate” about antidepressants and suicide is very polarized, with one camp applauding them as a miraculous intervention to alleviate the suffering of suicidal people and the other decrying them as part of a murderous conspiracy being perpetrated against us all by Big Pharma. Instead, I’ve decided for now that I need to merely try to articulate my conclusions from my reading without elaborating upon them or pointing to supporting documents (in other words, to offer my unadorned opinion, which I don’t often do in the pages of SPNAC, but which seemed an important starting place for me on this topic, while I’m waiting for the New Yorker or the Atlantic or Harper’s to commission me to write a full-fledged essay on the topic).

Here is what I think can accurately be said about antidepressant medications, depression, and suicide:

• Depression is an illness with its source in the biological structure, content, and processes of people’s brains (internally driven phenomena) AND in the structure, content, and processes of people’s “ways of thinking” about ideas and experiences (externally driven phenomena).
• There is a clear and direct link between depression and suicide.
• Medicines (antidepressants) have been developed that — for some people — alleviate the biological symptoms of depression, including their tendency to attempt suicide.
• In some people, the medicines don’t work or don’t work very well, and in others they cause negative side effects, including increasing in some cases people’s tendency to attempt suicide.
• The effects of antidepressant medication on the brain are not understood as well as they ought to be understood relative to how widely the medicines are used.
• The scientific inquiry about antidepressants is a dynamically evolving endeavor, and there is insufficient consensus about some of the most important questions at hand.
• The clinical usefulness of these medicines has been negatively affected by their marketing and distribution, which has overreached the science supporting their use.

And here is what a list of remedies for the current situation might look like:

• The use of antidepressant medication must be supported as a treatment option.
• Clinical guidelines for safe administration of antidepressants must be strengthened, and clinicians must be trained and otherwise equipped to administer them safely.
• Strict safeguards must be put in place — not via a “warning label” but via an improved standard of practice or even a legal mandate — to keep people who are prescribed antidepressants safe from suicide.
• Effective patient and public education about depression and its treatment — including the role of antidepressant medication — must be instituted.
• Effective treatments must be developed, implemented, and supported that address not only the biological sources of depression but also people’s “ways of thinking” that contribute to depression.
• Research on depression — as well as on both biological and other interventions and treatments — must be done much more strategically, ambitiously, and independently.
• All marketing of antidepressant medications ought to be suspended while a thorough, independent review of the scientific knowledge about and marketing practices for them is undertaken and recommendations for implementing the remedies above (or better ones) are instituted.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/AntidepressantMeds .]

In this study, Attachment-based Family Therapy (ABFT), found that patients with severe suicidal thinking were at least four times more likely to have no suicide thinking at the end of the treatment or three months after treatment, than patients treated in the community. Patients in ABFT also showed a more rapid decrease in depression symptoms and were retained in treatment longer than in community care … This is the first treatment study for teen suicidal ideation to show robust and statistically significant improvement over treatment as usual.

“Family conflict, chaos, and strife can contribute to youth suicide, while at the same time family love, trust, and communication can buffer against it,” [says Dr. Guy Diamond of the hospital's Center for Family Intervention Science, who directed the study]. “This therapy aims to resolve family conflicts and promote family strengths so that the appropriate bond of attachment can protect youth from self harm.”

The research report appears in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Diamond is delivering a workshop for clinicians in Attachment-based Family Therapy at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on April 9-10.

[The abridged URL for this post is http://tinyurl.com/AttachmentTherapy .]

Sylvie Frechette

Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Sylvie Frechette — whose fiancee died by suicide just days before she traveled to the 1992 Barcelona Games — is among those playing a central role in supporting Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette as Joannie prepares to compete tonight in Vancouver in spite of her mother’s heart attack and death on Sunday. Sylvie is serving as a mentor to the Canadian Olympic team, so her experience with grief has drawn the two women together as Joannie grapples with the news of her mother’s loss yet carries on with her determined preparations to skate in the Olympics.

In “Frechette Aches for Rochette” in the Toronto Sun, QMI Agency reporter Steve Simmons tells the story:

[Frechette said,] “When I heard about what happened, it brought back so many emotions for me this morning. It’s hard to explain. I saw her. I held her in my arms and I whispered ‘If you need anything, just let me know. I’m here.’”

It is 18 years later, and her voice still cracks as she speaks of the pain, the emotional confusion, and the competitive instinct that’s inside all world-class athletes. Rochette, through the Canadian Olympic team, has indicated she will not go home. She will compete here.

“You have to understand what this is like,” said Frechette. “You are [at] the athletic peak of your career. This is the biggest event of your life. And personally, you are having the worst day of your life.”

“I want to tell her that whatever decision she takes, there is no wrong here. She has to do what is right for herself. It can’t come from her coach, her friends, her teammates. She has to put herself where she needs to be. I can tell her that from experience. I don’t want her to think about what others say. You can’t get caught up in all that.”

For more on the story, see “Rochette in Mourning” by Dan Barnes in yesterday’s Montreal Gazzette.

[The abridged URL for this post is  http://tinyurl.com/OlympicSurvivor .]

[Update: Here's a story about Joannie's performance on Tuesday night. And reporter Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News completes the coverage with "Bronze Winner Joannie Rochette a Remarkable Story in Figure Skating."]