Transgender teens in Texas throughout the United States are at significantly greater risk of death by suicide. In fact, a 2011 study of 6,450 people published by the National Transgender Discrimination Survey revealed that as many as 41 percent of gender nonconforming individuals tried to die by suicide. A suicide attorney in Texas knows that family support can help bring down the suicide death rates among this specific demographic, but the risk of suicidal ideation and death by suicide still remains higher than the general population.

Transgender individuals may be especially vulnerable as teenagers, a time when their bodies will start changing in ways they do not want it to and a time when they may be forced to cope with cruelty from peers. Parents and caregivers can sometimes help kids through this difficult time period by providing children with the counseling they need to manage their feelings. However, counselors need to be trained, qualified and capable of recognizing when someone is having thoughts of suicide so appropriate action can be taken to prevent a tragedy from occurring.

Counselors Could Help to Save the Lives of Those Considering Death by Suicide

The recent suicide of an Ohio teenager has brought the issue of transgender teen suicide to the forefront, with many mainstream news media publications covering the story and with vocal groups of people actually condemning the parents of the teen who was killed.

The death was announced first by the child’s mother as the death of her “son.” The child was anatomically male but the child believed that this was the inappropriate gender. Before dying by suicide by jumping in front of a large truck, the teen had posted a suicide note that would publish after her death. The note has been reposted hundreds of times in newspapers and across websites. In it, the teen explained feeling depression at the idea of not being able to transition or ever find love. The teen also exhibited frustration at what she perceived to be the lack of support from her parents.

The teen’s mother has given conflicting accounts of what occurred, denying much of what was in the suicide note, according to CNN.  Because there are two sides to every story, it is not clear exactly how much information published in the suicide note was a 100 percent accurate depiction of the relationship between the teen and her parents. As we all know perceptions trump reality. Themes that the note did repeatedly mention, however, involved the teen’s frustration before her suicide about only being taken to religious counselors who were judgmental and not supportive of someone with gender identity issues.

If this is in fact the case, then these counselors may not have done their jobs and may have let their patient down in important ways. Whether a mental health counselor agrees with a person’s lifestyle or not, it is not the job of the counselor to judge, nor fail to properly assess this high risk group for suicide. This is true whether the patient is experiencing a gender identity crisis, depression or has other types of mental health concerns. A qualified counselor will listen and provide appropriate therapy. A qualified counselor should also be able to recognize when someone is depressed to the point of contemplating suicide so that the counselor can get the patient help.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

A charity called Samaritans released an app at the end of October that was designed to help prevent death by suicide. The app included a specially designed algorithm that was intended to identify key words and phrases that might suggest someone was having thoughts of suicide. People who signed up for the app would be notified if someone that they were following was posting troubling phrases on Twitter that could suggest a risk of suicide.

The app has since been pulled from the market because of concerns about privacy and worries that it might make things worse for those who are experiencing mental health issues. While this particular app may not have been the best approach to take to helping to prevent suicide, it does raise questions about how technology could be used to help people who are having a hard time.

Identifying suicidal risk factors can be a difficult thing to do without some basic training. I recommend visiting the QPR Institute online. QPR (Question, Persuade, and Refer) Gatekeeper Training for Suicide is a brief educational program designed to teach “gatekeepers”–those who are strategically positioned to recognize and refer someone at risk of suicide (e.g., parents, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, caseworkers, police officers)–the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to respond by following three steps:

Trained mental health professionals and medical care providers should be in the best position to provide appropriate assistance. Unfortunately, a suicide attorney knows that this does not always work and medical professionals sometimes fail to do their job. “At times they simply don’t know what they don’t know because their professional training failed them” says Skip Simpson. Professional organizations like the American Association of Suicidology are busy trying to fix the poor clinician training in the United States. Another hard charging organization, the Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), is trying to get medical schools and graduate programs to focus on properly training their students in suicide prevention. The SPRC is moving mountains in suicide prevention.

QPR training will get folks at suicide risk to the proper resource; SPRC is attempting to make sure those resources know what they are doing and then do it properly. If clinicians fail to apply the proper standard of care, then they face a review by Skip Simpson and his colleagues across the United States.

Technological Tools in the Fight to Prevent Death by Suicide

The Samaritan app analyzed people’s Twitter accounts to find key phrases that could potentially suggest a person was considering death by suicide. Some of the phrases that the app looked for included things like “help me,” “need someone to talk to,” “hate myself,” “depressed,” and “tired of being alone.”

When these phrases were identified, followers of the person who was making the tweets would be alerted via email. Only people who had signed up for the service would get the email alerts. The app also monitored only Tweets that were publicly available and sent them only to individuals who were already following the tweeting person.

There were concerns, however, that stalkers and bullies could potentially sign up for the service. This would give them the opportunity to use the information to increase their abusive behavior at a time when their victims were especially vulnerable. Another possible issue is that the app could result in false positives, causing needless concern and making people less likely to reach out when they are feeling down.

The app has been removed from the market in response to the concerns. However, there are other online tools that are still used to help in the fight against suicide. Good Therapy, for example, has provided a list of the top 10 websites on the Internet that can help people who are having thoughts of suicide or who want to help others who are struggling. Lifeline Chat also makes it possible for people to reach out and talk to someone online if they are depressed or despairing and having thoughts of suicide.

So, while technology might continue to assist in the fight, nothing can replace human contact, genuine concern, and the help of medical professionals trained to deal with victims struggling with thoughts of suicide. Throughout the holidays, we can each do our part to reach out and help those struggling to cope through what for many is the most difficult time of the year.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

Nearly  everyone has heard about the importance of talking about your problems and not keeping feelings bottled up. A new study in Lancet Psychiatry finds that talking to others – specifically, therapists – can actually save lives. People who have attempted suicide can benefit from “talk therapy,” another name for psychotherapy. Repeat suicide attempts and deaths by suicide were about 25 percent lower among a group of Danish people who underwent voluntary short-term psychosocial counseling after a suicide attempt, according to the study.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health examined Danish health data from about 65,000 people who attempted suicide between Jan. 1, 1992, and Dec. 31, 2010. They looked at 5,678 people from that group who received sessions of talk therapy at one of Denmark’s eight suicide prevention clinics. Then they compared their outcomes over time with more than 17,000 other people who attempted suicide and who looked similar on other factors but had not gone for treatment afterward. Analyzing the data after a 20-year follow-up, researchers found the people who received talk therapy  were less likely to attempt suicide than people who did not receive the therapy.  Those who received psychotherapy repeated acts of self-harm less frequently and had a lower risk of death by suicide (or any cause) than those in the study who did not receive the therapy.

First-Of-Its-Kind Study Supports Benefits of Psychotherapy in Suicide Prevention

Suicide attorneys understand that it’s no surprise that counseling people with suicidal thoughts will help save lives.  But up until now, there has not been a lot of research to support whether a specific treatment is working. It’s a difficult subject to analyze, according to the study’s authors, because it’s not ethical to conduct a randomized study where some people get suicide prevention therapy while others don’t. In Denmark, the suicide prevention clinics were rolled out slowly and participation in the study was voluntary. Researchers say the large-scale study is the first of its kind to offer evidence that talk therapy can decrease the number of deaths by suicide.

Unfortunately, we know that many licensed mental health professionals in the United States lack proper training to help people who are at risk. They sometimes fail to offer the talk therapy – or other types of treatment – that can save lives. That’s why families whose loved ones died by suicide need the help of experienced attorneys who know what’s required to hold mental health providers accountable.

The new study was detailed in many publications, including a report in Time on Nov. 24, 2014. Quoting researchers, Time stated: “People who present with deliberate self-harm constitute a high-risk group for later suicidal behavior and fatal outcomes, so preventive efforts are important; yet, implemented specialized support after self-harm is rare.”

In  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health news release about the findings, Annette Erlangsen, DPH, an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Mental Health, stated: “We know that people who have attempted suicide are a high-risk population and that we need to help them. However, we did not know what would be effective in terms of treatment. Now we have evidence that psychosocial treatment – which provides support, not medication – is able to prevent suicide in a group at high risk of dying by suicide.”

According to the news release, researchers suggest broadly implementing therapy programs for people who have attempted suicide in the past.

We have no doubt that there’s room for improvement when it comes to helping people who have made attempts at suicide or who have suicidal thoughts. We hope this new study will lead to some meaningful changes.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

Understanding risk factors for suicide is essential to preventing death by suicide. Updated research suggests that one potential risk factor frequently overlooked is a tendency toward perfectionism. Individuals, families of perfectionists and mental health professionals need to be aware that an overwhelming drive to be the best at everything can be a potential mental health issue that increases the risk of death by suicide. A suicide attorney should be consulted if mental health experts miss the signs and a person attempts to die by suicide.

Perfectionism is a Risk Factor for Death by Suicide

Perfectionism is generally defined as a need to either be perfect or to appear perfect. Unfortunately, as a new article in the Science of Us indicates, “the average person has very little understanding or awareness of how destructive perfectionism can be.”

Perfectionists frequently feel as though they are impostors putting on a mask of having it altogether. When this facade collapses, it can be devastating. For example, in a 2007 study, researchers interviewed friends and family members of people who had recently died by suicide. With no prompting, more than half of the people who had lost their lives were described by their family members as “perfectionists.”

A British study had similar results. Researchers looked at 20 students who had died by suicide. A total of 11 out of the 20 were described by people who knew them as being afraid to fail.

Yet another study of 33 boys and young men who had taken their lives were also described by their parents as having placed “exceedingly high” demands and expectations on themselves.

Unfortunately, there are high rates of death by suicide among people who are perfectionists because many people set impossibly high standards for themselves that they cannot possibly meet. They may then feel let down or disappointed when they are unable to meet the expectations that they have set.

The link between suicide and perfectionism have been largely misunderstood and overlooked, in large part because perfectionists don’t want people to know they are suffering. A person who is a perfectionist will try to paint a facade of keeping everything together, and admitting to thoughts of suicide will not typically fit in with the image that they are trying to present. Family members and loved ones may not even be aware of the fact that the perfectionist is experiencing any type of depression, as “perfectionism might not only be driving suicidal impulses, it could also be simultaneously masking them.”

Perfectionists are advised to aim the trait outside of themselves whenever possible to avoid some of the downsides of perfectionism. Volunteering and doing things for others could help to alleviate some of the pressures that are associated with perfectionism. For parents whose kids are perfectionists, sharing stories of setbacks and failures could also help to make a big difference.

Recognizing the potential for suicide associated with perfectionism is an important first step in being able to recognize signs of a problem and prevent a death from occurring.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

Eighteen percent of undergraduate students in the United States have suicidal thoughts and about one student in 10 makes plans to die by suicide. Every day, there are nearly three on-campus deaths of college students due to suicide. Recently, Philly.com looked at the problem of suicides on campus and asked an important question: “isn’t this an epidemic?”

A suicide attorney knows that college is a transitional time and a period of tremendous emotional stress and vulnerability. Young people are struggling to define themselves away from their families for the first time. They are faced with peer pressure as well as blossoming academic challenges, all of which can become very overwhelming.

Preventing Death by Suicide on College Campuses

College students, parents, friends and family members need to understand when someone is at risk of death by suicide. For the vast majority of people, thoughts of suicide are a “transient” emotional state, so it can be difficult to identify when college students may cross the line from thoughts into taking action.

College campuses try to provide help to prevent death by suicide. Roof access has been reduced and balconies have been blocked off on many campuses in response to student suicides. Special training and screening or evaluation tools are provided on some campuses, and colleges have made counseling available on campus. However, there may be much more that should be done to prevent death by suicide. Suggestions for a campaign to reduce deaths include:

• More education. Suicide should be talked about more frequently, and students should be taught that the brain can be modified to control urges. The difference between automatic conditioned living and purposeful choosing should be explored, and students should be educated more on the boundaries marking the beginning of illness. There should also be more open discussion about available treatments for depression or thoughts of suicide.
• More screening. College students are a highly-vulnerable group at risk for suicide. A broad screening program may be more effective on a college campus than it would be among the general population. The screening program would not only help to identify students who are at risk but would also help to maintain awareness both about the risk of death by suicide as well as about the significance of suicidal ideation.
• Better suicide prevention networks. Suicide prevention efforts should focus on the communication tools that college students use most frequently. For example, students may be more likely to visit a supportive community center web site that acts as a suicide prevention network than they would be to call a suicide hotline. Students should have access to suicide counselors on the social networks that they use most, as they may not visit student health services

By providing better access to suicide prevention services using the communication tools that students need, hopefully the problem of suicide on college campuses could be reduced. Mental health counselors available to students on college campuses also need to be aware of the unique risks that vulnerable student populations face and should be especially vigilant to watch for signs of suicidal thoughts.

A Dallas, TX suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

When a person is incarcerated, he or she is still entitled to receive necessary medical care for health conditions. This includes not just physical symptoms but also mental problems that may be causing someone to have thoughts of suicide or to consider dying by suicide. Unfortunately, a recent article on AOL.com suggested that safeguards designed to prevent inmates from harming themselves are not being followed.

Anyone considering dying by suicide deserves to get help and have a chance to recover, even if that person is in jail or prison. This “prisoner,” by the way, may be a teen locked up in jail for a DWI; a teen who is ashamed for the arrest and thinking he or she has ruined their life.  Of course they haven’t but they think so.

Those responsible for providing help can be held accountable if they negligently fail. An experienced suicide attorney can represent victims or family members who suffer as a result of a failure of healthcare providers or other professionals.

Inmates at Risk of Death by Suicide

According to AOL.com, an inmate in New York city who was experiencing mental illness died by suicide. He had attempted to die by suicide three times within a three day period of time before his ultimate death. As a result, he was put on 24-hour watch in an attempt to protect him. This was ignored. Also ignored was a screening form in which he had indicated that he was “thinking about killing himself.”

This is not an isolated incident. Another inmate also died by suicide in a solitary confinement cell after telling the guards that he was suicidal. When he said this to one of the guards shortly before his death, the reply was to “go ahead and do it,” if you have the courage to do so. A third story involved another inmate dying by suicide using a metal bed that he stood on its end to create a scaffold. The beds were supposed to be welded to the floor to prevent this, since another inmate had previously done the same thing.

AOL reported that records show at least 11 suicides in New York City jails in the past five years. In at least nine of the incidents, there was a failure to follow safeguards designed to prevent inmates from death by suicide.

Problems include:

• Communications breakdowns between guards and mental health staff, which can sometimes result in inmates not getting necessary medications or precautions not being taken to protect those considering death by suicide.
• Improper distribution of medication.
• Inadequate mental health treatment.

There is no excuse for these types of problems, but they happen all the time. As a result, after cancer and heart disease, suicide is the third leading cause of death in jails nationwide. Throughout the country, there are 41 deaths by suicide among inmates for every 100,000 people incarcerated.

It is often possible to prevent death by suicide and a failure to take reasonable precautions to protect inmates can be considered negligent. When someone’s negligence directly contributes to a death by suicide, it is important to hold that individual or company accountable in order to change behavior going forward in the future and provide broader protections to those who need them.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 to schedule a free case consultation.

There are many risk factors for suicide and both individuals and mental health professionals need to be aware of some of the likely reasons why people will consider death by suicide. One factor that can play a role in increasing the risk of suicide is domestic violence.

Mental health professionals should know that a person who has experienced domestic violence or intimate partner violence is at greater risk of death by suicide. If a counselor or care professional fails to recognize risk factors of suicide, a suicide attorney should be consulted for assistance in pursuing a claim for compensation.

The Link Between Domestic Violence and Suicide

As Overcoming the Darkness reports, victims of domestic violence have a higher risk of suicide not only while the violence is occurring but over the course of the rest of their lives. For example, a woman who experiences violence at the hands of an intimate partner is 12 times as likely to die by suicide as compared with someone who is not a victim of domestic violence. The increased risk of suicide is so strong that more domestic violence victims actually die by suicide than are killed by the person who is committing the abuse.

People who are themselves victimized by domestic violence are not the only ones who face an increased risk of suicide. Children who are exposed to domestic violence in the home are more likely to have suicidal tendencies and to die from suicide.

UMN reports on additional research showing a link between suicide and domestic violence. One study showed that 29 percent of all women in the United States who attempted suicide had been battered by an intimate partner. Reports prompted UNICEF to state that “a close correlation between domestic violence and suicide has been established based on studies in the United States” as well as in at least seven other countries.

Victims of domestic violence may feel trapped in a situation they cannot get out of and may feel as if they have no choice but to escape by taking their own life. Unfortunately, both suicide and domestic violence are also stigmatized in society. People avoid talking about domestic violence and they avoid talking about the fact that they are having thoughts of suicide because they are ashamed or because they fear social stigma.

Open communication is the key to preventing deaths by suicide among domestic violence victims. A change in public perception could help to make it easier for people who are being victimized and considering suicide to get the help that they need. Healthcare professionals need to be better trained and better informed on the link between domestic violence and suicide, and screening should be encouraged so that intervention is more likely to occur.

A large-scale study conducted by the United States Air Force shows that integrating suicide prevention policies and de-stigmatizing the process of seeking help can make a major difference in reducing the suicide rate. Not only that, but homicide and family-violence rates also decreased along with the number of people who died by suicide.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

The Great Recession that started in 2007 caused many people to lose their homes and their livelihood. Some individuals and families, however, experienced a loss that was far beyond any financial devastation. According to a recent article on CBS News, the Great Recession may have been the cause of more than 10,000 deaths by suicide.

Economic stress can significantly increase the chances of someone having suicidal thoughts, and a job loss or a foreclosure can lead to someone attempting suicide. Families and community members need to be especially supportive of those going through financial hardship and mental health professionals must be vigilant in watching for signs that a patient they are treating may be considering death by suicide after a financial setback.

If medical professionals fail to recognize and act on signs of suicide, surviving family members may be able to take legal action to obtain compensation for losses. A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can represent those who lose a loved one as a result of death by suicide.

Economic Distress and Death by Suicide

Researchers from the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene & Topical Medicine examined information on deaths by suicide from 24 different countries in the European Union as well as in Canada and the United States.

Researchers found a substantial increase in rates of suicide between 2008 and 2010. The increase in deaths by suicide was four times greater among men than among women.

In the European Union, suicides increased 6.5 percent from the time the economic crisis started in 2007 until the end of 2009. In Canada, there was a 4.5 percent increase in deaths by suicide between 2007 and 2010. In the United States, there was a 4.8 percent increase in deaths by suicide. These numbers were “conservative” estimates, and it is likely that there were more deaths that were not counted.

During this same time period, there was also a significant increase in the rate of prescription antidepressant use. For example, in the United Kingdom, there was an 11 percent increase in antidepressant use between 2003 and 2007 but by 2010, there was a 19 percent increase in the number of people taking such medications.

The fact that the differences in suicide rates occurred in all of the countries affected by the great recession gave researchers considerable confidence in concluding that it was economic factors that specifically caused the increase in the number of people who died by suicide.

Unfortunately, key risk factors for suicides during a recession include home repossession, a significant increase in debt, and the loss of a job.

Interventions such as return-to-work programs and employment assistance may help to reduce the risk of suicide. In fact for each $100 per person spent on programs to help the unemployed, there is a .4 percent increase in the risk of death by suicide.

Ultimately, however, mental health professionals may have the biggest impact on reducing the chances of a death by suicide in each particular case since behavioral therapy and the use of antidepressant medications can help a person to weather even serious economic hardship.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 or visit http://www.skipsimpson.com to schedule a free case consultation.

Note from the Law Offices of Skip Simpson: This extremely important blog comes from Dr. Paul Quinnett, president and CEO of The QPR Institute, Inc. Dr. Quinnett is a leading authority on suicide prevention in the United States.

When I started writing this blog, the country was still shaking from the shootings at UC Santa Barbara. Before I finished the first draft, the shooting at Seattle Pacific University had just ended. I am in rewrite today, one day after the tragedy in Las Vegas, and while writing this very sentence I learned of the shooting in Troutdale, Oregon.

Full stop!

America, we need to call a timeout, huddle up, and get an action plan going to stop the carnage.

To prevent the next mass murder-suicide we must, simply must, get upstream from these unfolding events and identify potential suicidal shooters before they purchase weapons, load up, and open fire. Yes, suicidal shooters, not homicidal ones.

I’ve covered this a bit in earlier posts, but bear with me. If suicide contagion is real (and it is), then so is murder-suicide contagion. See one, do one. Humans are highly imitative primates – and not just of good manners, but murder, means and mayhem.

For schools and colleges, one intervention recommended by some is to arm school employees, from teachers to school safety officers, and even students themselves. Armed resistance may reduce the number of persons killed and injured, but in my view it is too little too late. When bullets begin to fly, you’re into intervention, not prevention.

Stopping smoking is prevention; heart surgery is intervention. An armed employee or student can respond to an attack – if they are not killed first – but the homicidal-suicidal person who knows an armed target awaits him at his chosen location is likely to be attracted, not dissuaded, from action. His solution, after all, is to die in a hail of gunfire.

Mass murder-suicides (from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to UCSB to Las Vegas) are perpetrated by people who are suicidal first, homicidal second. Once the decision to die has been made – either by their own hand or by another’s – the second decision to seek “justice” for perceived wrongs provides only a final motivation.

Ways to Prevent Mass Murder-Suicides

These are not random acts of violence. Escapes are not planned. The shooter’s intention is to die, usually at the scene. Mass murder-suicides are premeditated, planned, and therefore preventable – if three things are done:

1. Train as many people as possible to recognize and respond to suicide warning signs. This is our collective responsibility to assure ourselves of a safe and sane society. On expert retrospective analysis of these events, suicide warning signs are inevitably present before the shooting begins. Suicide warning signs can be taught and acted upon to cause a formal threat assessment to be conducted, perhaps followed by voluntary or involuntary treatment or other risk mitigation interventions, e.g., denying access to firearms.

2. Train mental health professionals. Currently, few mental health professionals are well trained in how to conduct a comprehensive suicide/homicide risk assessment. Moreover, too many do not routinely intervene with families to see to the removal or security of firearms available to potential suicidal or homicidal loved ones. Thus, even though a potential shooter is in treatment, there is no guarantee a competent risk assessment has been conducted or that all evidence-based risk mitigation strategies have been employed, including restricting access to firearms.

The training, by the way, is called Counseling Against Access to Lethal Means (CALM) and it is available free at: http://training.sprc.org/. It was developed by a dear colleague and friend and I cannot recommend it too highly. If you own a gun, you have a new duty: take CALM training.

3. Train law enforcement officers. Police officers are likewise not well trained to recognize and respond thoroughly to suicide warning signs. If they do detain a person for evaluation, they must rely on emergency room or mental health professionals to determine the level of risk and necessary action steps. But research shows that ED staffers know even less about suicide/homicide risk assessment than do mental health professionals. In the UCSB case, after a 10-minute welfare check, the sheriffs left a number and encouraged Elliot Rodger to call for help.

He didn’t.

Wake up, people…. suicidal males rarely ask for help, and homicidal-suicidal males never do. Or if they do, it is when taking the first steps down the trail to a tragedy for all.

Rarely Do Suicidal Males Ask for Help

This step might be taken in a therapist’s office, or in a conversation with a school counselor, or with someone who might, just might, be in a position to recognize that small but ominous cloud rising from a sea of mental anguish and torment “no bigger than a man’s hand.”

I am, admittedly, an impatient man. Waiting for troubled, angry, suicidal young men to ask for help before they start killing us is unacceptable. Enough with the waiting. If we have satellite spy cameras so powerful we can read a license plate from space, surely we are smart enough to figure out how to identify these people before they gain access to guns and start shooting.

(To my fellow Americans in the NSA reading this blog post: How about lending us all a hand here?  As tax payers, you work for us not the other way around, right?)

Back to the cops who, in this case, and in my view, might have tried the slick Lt. Colombo maneuver to get into the shooter’s house without a warrant, as in, “Oh, by the way… I wonder if it would be OK if we looked around just to make sure, etc. etc.” Stiff resistance to this polite request would raise the index of suspicion and perhaps trigger a deeper investigation.

Mental Health/Law Enforcement Teams

If police officers cannot be trained to detect suicide risk, and then conduct suicide/homicide risk assessments in the field, then pair them with trained mental health professionals and create competent, quick-acting crisis response teams who understand that early identification and intervention may go unrewarded by the general public, but is still heroic. Mental health/law enforcement teams must be fully funded to respond to these threats and yet, currently, many communities are without them.

In the UCSB tragedy it is clear that the two groups of professionals who had contact with Mr. Rodger before he started killing people did not, or could not, communicate with each other about the risk that alarmed his parents and a roommate. The parents acted, but the roommate did not, later saying, “Why did I not say anything?”

The parents did say something, but we can only guess that the professionals involved may not have had the kind of training needed to a) recognize suicide/homicide warning signs, b) conduct a comprehensive suicide/threat assessment, and c) employ their collective civil authority to cause a change in the trajectory of the unfolding event, e.g., a voluntary or involuntary hospital hold to determine how much risk to self and others was present.

It’s a cheap shot for me to opine about this UCSB event while unencumbered by the facts, or the reality of actually having been there, but I have reviewed all of the other high-profile mass-murder suicides in recent history and the pattern is the same again and again and again. And as an old spy myself (retired), I have a pretty good idea of what’s missing. It’s called Intel.

From the 1955 Hoover Commission on American spy work, “Intelligence deals with all the things which should be known in advance of initiating a course of action.” Intelligence is used to prevent violence, and we cannot expect our mental health and law enforcement officers to initiate a course of action to avert violence without better intelligence. The dots are there; they are just not being connected.

But what about confidentiality?

What confidentiality? When lives are at stake, confidentiality is moot.

Too often confidentiality is the screen behind which mental health professionals stand to protect themselves from extra work, like talking to parents or family members when conducting a youth suicide risk assessment. Yes, they don’t get paid for intelligence gathering beyond that provided by their patients, but they should, and this can be fixed with a stroke of the regulatory pen.

Any clinician who relies solely on the statements made by a suicidal and possibly homicidal patient to assess and manage potential risk for violence is either untrained or naive. (Sometime I will share my Top 10 Reasons to Lie to Your Therapist if You Are Suicidal).

When I directed a large emergency service for 25 years and had the authority to invoke involuntary detention to determine if treatment was indicated for anyone suicidal or homicidal or both, people sometimes threatened to sue us over their loss of privacy. None did. But if they had, I was fully prepared to make the case for a temporary suspension of a person’s civil rights in the name of safety for all.

Some say these mass murder-suicides are unpredictable and therefore cannot be prevented. I disagree.  The dots are all there. Through training, education, better intelligence gathering, better intelligence sharing, and better communication among observers, we’ve shown we can greatly reduce American battlefield causalities. Now all we have to do is apply what we already know how do in our own back yards.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 to schedule a free case consultation.

Many different risk factors can increase the likelihood of a young person having suicidal thoughts or attempting to die by suicide. While most parents and counselors are familiar with the potential impact that bullying and depression can have on the likelihood of a teen attempting death by suicide, there is also another danger that may not be so apparent. Emerging research indicates that a teenager who has suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) may have a greater risk of taking his or her own life.

Mental health professionals need to be aware of factors that increase a teen’s likelihood of death by suicide and must act to protect their patients. A suicide attorney should be consulted in situations where a mental health counselor has potentially failed to live up to his obligations with teens.

The Link Between TBI and Suicidal Thoughts or Attempts

According to Psych Central, a traumatic brain injury can result in “significantly greater odds” that a teenager will make an attempt. This is true even if the TBI was a simple concussion. Teens with a TBI had three times the chances of attempting suicide, and twice the chances of being bullied either at school or online.

Researchers identified this link by reviewing data collected as part of the 2011 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey. The survey initially began as a method of studying drug use but has been broadened to ask questions about adolescent well-being and health. It is one of the longest ongoing school studies worldwide and almost 9,000 students participate. The students range from grade seven to grade 12.

In 2011, questions about traumatic brain injury were added to the study for the first time. Prior research shows that as many as 20 percent of adolescents in Ontario had experienced a TBI over the course of their lives.

The comprehensive nature of the new study allowed for connections to be drawn between a history of TBI and an attempt to die by suicide.  Mental health experts know that TBIs can exacerbate both mental health and behavioral problems, so it is important to understand this link.

Research revealed that a teenager who had a prior TBI was more likely to become a bully or to be bullied; and was also more likely to have been prescribed medication for anxiety, for depression or both. Teens with a prior TBI also had greater odds of breaking and entering; selling drugs; running away from home; damaging property; getting into fights at school; carrying weapons and setting fires.

Because of the far-reaching consequences of a TBI, prevention should always be the top goal, especially as many traumatic brain injuries are suffered during recreational or athletic activities and could be prevented by the use of helmets.

Unfortunately, once a brain injury has occurred, the only option is to watch carefully for signs of problems. It is essential for “primary physicians, schools, parents, and coaches” to be vigilant in monitoring adolescents who have suffered a brain injury.  Counselors should also provide the assistance these teens need to cope and avoid behavioral problems or thoughts of suicide.

A suicide attorney at the Law Offices of Skip Simpson can help. Call (214) 618-8222 to schedule a free case consultation.