Citation

Lester D. Suicide Stud. 2021; 2(1): 24-25.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, David Lester)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

An alternative title could be: The Method of Substitute Subjects Has No Value for Understanding Suicide. The method of substitute subjects as a term was coined for suicidologists by Neuringer (1962). Because suicides are deceased and, so cannot be given the standardized tests and interviews developed by psychologists, Neuringer suggested turning to the study of those who have suicidal ideation or who have attempted suicide - substitute subjects The majority of studies on suicide, therefore, use suicide ideators and attempters as the subjects for research.

I would argue that this is great for getting publications, academic success and grants, but almost totally useless for understanding suicide.

You might argue that we are interested in suicide ideators and attempters themselves, and this is, of course, true, but they are not as interesting as suicides and will not help us to understand suicides. Let me give an example.

Joiner's (2005) Interpersonal Theory of Suicide proposes that thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness are behind every suicide. Almost all of the research of this theory uses living subjects and, indeed, often scores on scales to measure these two constructs are associated positively with a measure of suicidality. This has been found in samples of psychiatric patients (Teismann, et al., 2016) and undergraduate students (Lockman & Servaty-Seib, 2016).

But studies of suicide notes and suicides find that there is little evidence that perceived burdensomeness plays a role in more than15% of the suicides (Gunn, et al., 2012; Lester & Gunn, 2021). How is this possible?....

Language: en