ABSTRACT
This chapter views the suicide problem from the perspective of university counseling center staff. Epidemiology is reviewed—How prevalent is suicidal behavior among college students? Contributing familial, academic, social, and psychological variables are presented in all their complexity. Legal, ethical, and practical concerns which college administrators must face when dealing with a suicidal crisis are discussed. The authors explore prevention and postvention and present a case study that illustrates the management of a campus suicidal crisis.
“I have at various times regarded suicide as the one most active gesture in an otherwise apparently passive existence; in other words, life seemed proscribed by death, and, if any individual feels he can effect no substantial change in his life, then suicide seems an active and logical alternative.”
(Anonymous, in Shneidman & Farnsworth, 1972, p. 131).So wrote a Harvard student as he chronicled the sequence of events around his contemplated self-destruction; the attempt, rescue, hospitalization, confrontation with university officials, call to parents, therapy sessions, and worry about others’ reactions.
Evident in this student’s essay is the complexity of his psychological state prior to the suicide attempt. What is also noteworthy is the complexity of the sequence of responses after the attempt. Unraveling the complexity of the suicide act and structuring the complex manner of responding to it are the two main foci of the college student suicide literature.
Serious psychological discussion of student suicide can be traced back to the 1910 meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society (Friedman, 1967). The Society’s panel, consisting of such seminal thinkers as Freud, Adler, and Stekel, convened over concerns about suicides among the students of the Gymnasium and speculated about possible causes.
Since that meeting, dozens of articles and reports have been devoted to the topic of student suicide, including a public television documentary, “College Can Be Killing” (1978). Even as this book 328goes to press, a national student affairs conference, “The Problem of Suicide On Campus” is scheduled at Louisville, Kentucky; and a special issue is being planned of the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy on preventing college student suicide.
This seven-section chapter reflects the complexity of this multi-faceted topic. In the first section, college student suicidal behavior is viewed from an epidemiological perspective. Next, we examine some variables—family, academic, social, and psychological—that have been associated with our topic. Third, we present legal, ethical, and practical concerns which higher education administrators face when dealing with campus suicidal crises. Fourth, we describe a model for interviewing students in suicidal crises. Fifth, we detail some preventive environmental interventions. Sixth, we consider the issue of postvention. Finally, a case study is presented in which we raise questions which need to be addressed when managing a campus suicidal crisis.
