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Good evening, everyone.

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It is my distinct pleasure this evening to, introduce to you Doctor.

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Melinda Moore.

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I have a hard time not smiling when I say her name.

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I, there's so many reasons tonight to be to have gratitude for being here for me.

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This is such an important topic in, in our world today, in our society.

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It is directly relevant to our work as mental health professionals.

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It is directly relevant to, our personal lives, our families, our communities, our politics, our veterans, we can go on.

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Doctor.

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Moore, is a rising star, a true suicidologist, someone who has really, is making it her life's work to work in this area.

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Not the easiest area, of course, either.

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In an interview on 09/11/2018, in the Lexington Herald, Doctor.

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Moore wrote an op ed, I don't have time to read the whole thing to you, I wish that I could, and I'll just, I'll just read a little bit from that.

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She said, many may assume that preventing suicide is the job solely of the mental health community.

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In fact, research show that many individuals who may be experiencing thoughts of suicide frequently turn to faith, community leaders to help, before they will seek the help of mental health professionals.

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And so, I think tonight we're here in our capacity not only as mental health professionals but as members of a faith community that understands the way that these things often intersect, that these things in our view are very much part of how we see integration, that these things are always connected especially when it comes to issues around existential meaning.

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Doctor.

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Moore goes on to say that clergy are in a powerful position to demonstrate leadership on the stigmatized topic of suicide, and I really like that she just came out and said that, that it's stigmatized, let's just say it, you know, and get it out there, and it should not be encouraging, help seeking and leading their flock to life saving resources.

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Additionally, part of preventing further suicide is talking about the effect this death has on us.

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It is called suicide postvention.

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And the other thing I really like about Doctor.

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Moore's work is she doesn't only talk about suicide, she talks about what happens after, post traumatic growth, postvention.

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There's a hopefulness about her work that I find very uplifting.

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There's evidence that having an act of faith and being involved in a faith community helps protect people from suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and death by suicide, as well as help those who has, lost a loved one to suicide.

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I'm going to leave the rest to Doctor.

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Moore, but let me give you a little bit of background.

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She holds a PhD in clinical psychology from the Catholic University of America.

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She trained under Dave Jobes in what's something called CAMS.

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It's a very well known system of, assessing for suicide.

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The long name for it is the collaborative assessment and management of Suicidality.

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If anyone is interested in the back of Dave Jobes' book that you can buy on Amazon, what's the name of the book again, do you remember?

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Managing suicidal risk.

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Managing suicidal risk, CAMS is in the back of that book, I, I spoke to Dave a few years ago, and he said that anyone who buys the book can use CAMS in the back of the book, because I thought I needed his special permission, so, if you're interested in having a look at that, I highly recommend it.

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She also is a chair of the Kentucky Suicide Prevention Group, it's a statewide suicide prevention nonprofit, she's conducted military suicide bereavement research at the University of Kentucky, and suicide treatment research at the Roblierex Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Louisville.

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Her interest in post traumatic growth has emerged from her own experience with suicide and the changes that experience created within her, allowing for her current career path and personal interests and relationships.

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It is not my place to speak to Doctor.

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Moore's, personal, circumstances, but what I will say is that I met her as a PhD student.

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I remember, her just being a very dedicated and devoted student.

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She, I think you were working on the hill, dedicated and devoted student.

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She, I think you were working on the hill at the time, because you were much better dressed than the other students, and, you know, I think we had an evening class, it was brutal, I think it was seven to ten at night, and we ran through Nancy Maguillams from seven to 10PM, on Wednesday evenings, and, Doctor.

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Moore was in the class, so you can see what happens when you're a good student, You could become Doctor.

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Moore, no pressure.

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So without further ado, I also just want to, say, I also want to make a plug for this book, that Doctor.

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Moore edited with Daniel Roberts, The Suicide Funeral or Memorial Service.

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It is a wonderful book, I've looked at it on Amazon, and, it is co written with faith leaders, including, Ron Rohlheiser, who many of you will recognize, but also some, Jewish scholars and, I, I highly recommend that you have a look at it.

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It's the suicide funeral or memorial service.

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So without further ado, I present doctor Moore.

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Alright.

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Okay.

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Thank you very much.

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It is like old home week being here right now.

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I spent ten years in the Washington DC area.

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As doctor Holman said, I was working on Capitol Hill, I worked for a suicide prevention, organization.

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I actually worked for two national suicide prevention organizations, and then felt led, really had kind of an epiphany.

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It was definitely a spiritual experience, because I had always been wanting to be on the clinical end of health care, not on the sort of policy or administrative end of health care.

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And, through this amazing, I would really call it a spiritual experience, the name David Jobes appeared to me and I knew he was a psychologist at Catholic University of America and so I sought him out and went to him and told him my life story and he said, Well, you have a degree in medieval and renaissance studies, so you're really not equipped to get into the PhD program, because I was saying Dante and, you know, Boccaccio, people playing medieval Italian poetry in college, but he said, come get a master's degree and then we'll see about gangstering you into the PhD program, which is exactly what happened.

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So I'm very grateful, to be back here in the Washington DC area.

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I spent all day today though working, I was I'm part of I'm an assistant professor in the department of psychology at a university called Eastern Kentucky University.

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We are about 20 miles Southeast of Lexington where the University of Kentucky is located.

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So I'm not at the University of Kentucky any longer, I did my post doc there, but I'm at Eastern Kentucky University.

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It's a regional teaching university, and, it's it serves very much a rural catchment area.

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So I'm grateful to be back though, in my home state of Kentucky.

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And I also do a lot of work nationally.

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I, sit on the board of the American Association of Suicidology, and if you have any interest whatsoever in suicide prevention, suicidology, suicide postvention, I really recommend you think about looking up the American Association of Suicidology's website, suicidology.org.

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It's a great organization, and we are having a conference coming up next month in Denver for April twenty fifth to twenty seventh, so I really encourage you to sort of check it out.

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I also am co lead for the National Action Alliance's Faith Communities Task Force, and I essentially got I was ball and told to, become co lead, not because I'm clergy or necessarily have any training, but because of the book that, doctor Holman showed you, The Suicide Funeral.

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There's it's there aren't a lot of people with suicide prevention expertise, suicidology expertise, who also are working in faith communities.

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So if you have a profound interest in this or any sort of interest in this, I highly recommend you get involved because you could very quickly have an important role, nationally, in this particular field.

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Anyway, but I'm here to talk with you today about how to understand suicide and its aftermath from a scientific and faith perspective.

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And, I'm going to be, talking about a lot of different people, but I'm so glad that you mentioned, father Rolheiser because I think no matter what your knowledge base is around suicide, your experience, your personal experience, your professional experience, whether it's a little bit or a lot, I think his quote really is very, emblematic of the experience of individuals who have had closer brushes with suicide.

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He said, All death unsettles us, but suicide leaves us with very particular series of emotional, moral, and religious scars.

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It brings with it an ache, a chaos, a darkness, and a stigma that has to be experienced to be believed.

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Sometimes we deny it, but it's always there, irrespective of our religious and moral beliefs.

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Father Rolheiser has been a real, leader, he certainly is probably the only faith leader that I know of that routinely writes about suicide and he graciously donated, a piece for our book.

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So I'm grateful to him, but also really grateful for his leadership on this topic.

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I think probably this issue, for those of us of Catholic faith, those of us of faith, probably, I don't know if people remember this or not, but this sort of came to a head, this issue, this intersection of suicide and faith, in early December, Mason Holabarger, who is a freshman at the University of Toledo, died by suicide and his parents talked with the the priest who delivered his sermon, the funeral sermon, funeral homily, and they said, you know, we really don't wanna focus on how he died but how he lived, and they made a special request to the priest.

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Do do do you all remember hearing about this?

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And actually at the funeral service, the the priest used unfortunately, used the opportunity to articulate his own feelings and thoughts about suicide, but did not honor the family's request.

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And the family became furious, they asked him to stop and he wouldn't stop, then they disinvited him to the graveside service.

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This became kind of a sort of a media campaign, the family went to the media, and it it really went viral.

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It was all over the world on CNN, on the BBC, I mean, it was all over the place about the family's outrage at the way the priest handled, the funeral service.

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I wish this were an isolated event.

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It is not an isolated event.

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I have, because I'm Catholic and I work with the Catholic Diocese of Lexington, I've had a couple of opportunities to talk with my bishop, the previous bishop to the bishop we have now, about some incidents, and I because I work with suicide bereaved people, I know of these incidents.

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And, here I mean, before we had our current bishop, I would I would write letters to the the bishop or I would write letters, you know, to people I thought we might be able to kind of, you know, have a conversation about what had happened, and it fell on deaf ears apparently because I heard absolutely nothing.

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I think that this this particular situation though speaks to the importance, particularly the the the injury, of the family and the fact that, you know, faith communities, faith leaders, people who, you know, you may be a clinical psychologist, but you also may, you know, be somebody who has a faith perspective and can certainly minister, in that way as well to people who are suffering.

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And unfortunately, he this this particular incident really brought up the importance of what we're talking about this evening.

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My I have both a personal and a professional introduction to suicide.

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I didn't realize it, until I got into the business of suicide prevention that I had had about three experiences early in my life, with suicide.

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Didn't recognize it, didn't really reflect upon it, but one of the things that I really didn't say this at the beginning, but one of the things I do at Eastern Kentucky University is I teach, I'm part of the core clinical faculty in our PsyD program, and I teach a special class called Understanding Suicide from Assessment to Intervention and Management.

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And the first assignment I have my students do oh, and by the way, this is a this class teaches you everything from soup to nuts, you know, history, epidemiology, theory, but then we also have embedded, clinical skills.

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And so I teach students the suicide focused treatment CAMS, the collaborative assessment and management of suicidality.

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But the first assignment that I have them do is to address what they bring to the table as clinicians with regard to suicide.

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And I oftentimes, I mean, this is a written assignment that only I see, and I assure them nobody else is gonna see it, and I give it right back to them so there's I don't even keep a copy of it.

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But one of the things that I had discovered is that a lot of the students have very profound experiences with suicide.

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Either they've lost family members, or they themselves have been suicidal.

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I've had students who were hospitalized, students that have had, you know, suicide attempts averted by family members, but very profound.

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So I think at first I was shocked by this, but I think it also speaks to the fact that we have to, as clinicians, we have to address, what we bring to the table and what flows from that that's both positive and negative.

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But in order to do that, we have to we have to, you know, really reflect upon that.

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And so I I have appreciated my experiences earlier in life, but then my my first professional experience with suicide was actually in the mid nineties.

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This is actually how long I've been around.

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I was working in the mid nineties as a, psychology is a third career for me, but I was working as a policy analyst and a speechwriter for the director of health in Ohio.

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I was working for the governor in Ohio, but appointed to the director of public health.

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I love public health and was working in public health for a number of years.

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And, on 05/16/1996, Admiral Jeremy Borda, and it probably was too long ago for many of you to remember this, but he sat in the Washington Navy yards and shot himself in the heart that morning and he was the chief of naval operations, which means he was the head naval officer for the Navy.

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And this was this was not, I mean, this was not a shrinking flower guy, this was a guy who had had, joined the Navy when he was 16 and he worked his way up to the head of naval operations, but he sat in the the Navy or the Washington Navy Yard and shot himself in the heart because I think it was Newsweek magazine was threatening to, run a story that he was inappropriately wearing this teeny tiny V for valor pin, which indicated that he had served in combat with valor, and they were suggesting that he was wearing it inappropriately.

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And so, he sat in the Navy, the shipyard or the Navy yards and and shot himself.

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And so this was just this rocked the public health service, it rocked the public health world, and I remember sitting in my boss's office and talking with him.

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And I I didn't while I worked for the director of health, I reported to the director of public affairs.

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And I remember our confusion around what how to think about this, why would somebody do this, you know, why would somebody kill themselves?

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And and the thing that mystified us is that we were, you know, our work, we dealt with every leading cause of morbidity and mortality, every behavior related cause of morbidity and mortality, whether it was low birth weight babies, obesity, smoking cessation, I mean, with mental health, but we were not talking about suicide.

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And so he and I could not make heads or tails of this, and we actually I remember having the conversation, you know, how do we prevent this?

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You know, how do we think about it?

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How do we prevent this?

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And then I remember talking with him about, well, should we be preventing this?

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I mean, we were so confused as to how to think about it.

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You know, should we be preventing people from killing themselves?

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And that was just how there was just a complete, you know, confusion around this topic.

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But my my personal, connection, my personal introduction came thirteen days later when my husband, who was a graduate student at Ohio State University, he was a chemist, he was getting his PhD in chemistry, he killed himself very unexpectedly.

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And this was a turning point in my life in so many respects.

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It was it was interesting to me that I had this sort of introduction to Admiral Borda's death and what's interesting also is that I came I remember coming home that night because I was still talking about it at the tail end of the day.

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And I wanted to talk to my husband about Admiral Borda and he would not engage with me in conversation.

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He would and he was an academic, he was an intellectual, he had something, a comment to say about everything in the world, but he would not engage with me on this topic.

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Of course, now I understand why, because he was, himself, was thinking about it, contemplating it.

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But this was without a doubt the most emotionally and physically painful experience of my life.

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I do not think I I I cannot conceive of ever feeling that much emotional and physical pain.

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And it changed me in a very profound way.

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One of the things that I experienced was, whoops, somehow it's not popping up.

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I don't know why.

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Okay.

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How do I go back?

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Let me go back here.

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Let's see.

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I don't know how to do this.

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Something's not popping up.

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Okay.

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How do I go back?

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Do I go back?

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I don't know.

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Something maybe there's some sort of I'm trying.

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Yeah.

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No.

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But others experience what I experienced.

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Okay.

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Apparently, it's not gonna show up.

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So what I experienced was incredible professional and personal rejection.

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So my husband was not American, he was Irish.

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He died on a Wednesday.

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I was on a plane on Saturday with my aunt and uncle, who were sort of like my surrogate parents, taking his body back to Ireland for burial.

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We buried him on Monday.

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We were back on that plane on Tuesday, and I was back at work the following Monday.

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And I realized when I came back to work that something different was going on.

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There was something about this experience.

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I shared in the taint of what he had done.

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Now here I was working at the, you know, top of of of public health agency in a in a big state, And people were normally very happy to see me in their offices.

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I mean, because I was usually going to be, you know, writing about something wonderful that they had done, or you know, promoting whatever, you know, cause they were involved in.

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But when I would see people, they were clearly not interested, you know, after I came back, they were not interested really in coming to their office.

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Certainly, people were not coming to my office.

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And in fact, I would be walking down the hallway, and people would see me coming, and they would turn and walk in the opposite direction.

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There was enormous, professional, isolation and rejection.

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Also, my family had no interest in talking about this.

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My friends had no interest in talking about this.

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So enormous, personal rejection.

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Also, sense of being blamed.

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The newspaper, because my husband died in a very violent way.

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He died of self immolation.

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And, the newspaper, the local Columbus Dispatch, wrote a piece on on how you know, his death.

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And, of course, they went around and, you know, interviewed all of my neighbors, and they were trying to figure out why would this happen.

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And, of course, nobody knew, so, of course, they blame the wife.

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You know, that's what happens.

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In text citations.

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That's what I'm supposed to say here.

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And I'm happy to send you my slides if you'd like to know what they are.

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But I realize that I was not alone and this was actually an experience of of many suicide bereaved individuals.

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So as I said, this was a profoundly painful experience and it changed me.

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And I oftentimes tell people it was the worst experience of my life.

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But I also tell people it was the best experience of my life.

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And that may seem absurd, but I will have to tell you that it really took the blinders off.

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It changed me on a profound level.

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It made me more compassionate.

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It certainly changed my voc my vocational interest.

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I would survive almost anything.

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It certainly made me, a more deeply spiritual, faithful person.

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Faith was really, frankly, the only thing I had Because no one else wanted to talk to me.

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No one might, you know, God loved my priest, but he said to me, you know, I said, would be great to have a faith support or some sort of support group for people who have had losses.

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And he said, well, you're the first person that's ever said that to me.

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And so I there were my doctor, my therapist, nobody knew how to talk with me.

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But what I did have was going to Mass once a week and suffering with Christ on the cross and taking the Eucharist.

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And so it was the one place where I could grieve.

00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:30.340
And so that's the one thing I did have.

00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:36.480
So one of the things that I realized later was that this is actually a concept called post traumatic growth.

00:22:36.480 --> 00:22:48.115
I don't know if you all are familiar with this phrase post traumatic growth, but it was actually, like the new science of suicidology or suicide prevention, post traumatic growth has been something that's been around forever.

00:22:48.335 --> 00:22:56.750
I mean, it's in every major world, religion, philosophy, it's in the Bible, but we've only begun studying it since the mid nineties.

00:22:56.750 --> 00:23:10.625
The phrase was coined by Tedeschi and Calhoun, and, there's a measure called the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory, but really this idea of post traumatic growth from trauma is something that stands on the shoulders of Viktor Frankl's work in Man's Search for Meaning.

00:23:10.925 --> 00:23:12.065
I love this quote.

00:23:18.800 --> 00:23:33.945
May rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by due This really changed also, this being being introduced to post traumatic growth really also changed me professionally.

00:23:33.945 --> 00:23:36.845
If I can get this to forward, I'm hoping it's going to forward soon.

00:23:37.385 --> 00:23:38.185
Maybe not.

00:23:38.185 --> 00:23:38.685
Okay.

00:23:38.745 --> 00:23:39.565
Maybe not.

00:23:40.185 --> 00:23:40.905
Did I do it?

00:23:40.905 --> 00:23:41.065
Okay.

00:23:41.065 --> 00:23:42.105
I have to go back again.

00:23:42.105 --> 00:23:43.805
I don't really want to go back.

00:23:44.585 --> 00:23:46.045
I'm not a big lover of technology.

00:23:46.345 --> 00:23:46.845
Okay.

00:23:47.350 --> 00:23:48.070
Well, there we go.

00:23:48.070 --> 00:23:48.950
Now we're back to Victor.

00:23:48.950 --> 00:23:49.450
Okay.

00:23:49.510 --> 00:23:55.610
So I was actually the first researcher to look at post traumatic growth among suicide bereaved parents.

00:23:56.630 --> 00:24:02.965
You know, when I first came to Catholic University of America and met David Jobes, he's a, you know, he's now a suicide treatment researcher.

00:24:03.185 --> 00:24:10.725
And he was really a suicide assessment person at the time, and then he developed this wonderful treatment framework, and now he's a suicide treatment researcher.

00:24:11.105 --> 00:24:23.800
And so it's interesting because, when I when I came to him and was working on my PhD and thinking about my dissertation, I automatically thought that my dissertation topic would have something to do with his suicide treatment research.

00:24:24.100 --> 00:24:29.985
And he said to me, he said, You know, Melinda, you're really in love with this concept of post traumatic growth and you're suicide bereaved.

00:24:29.985 --> 00:24:38.405
And he said, when you think about people who grow from trauma, he said, I can't think of another suicide bereaved person who kind of fits this profile of somebody who's grown from their trauma.

00:24:38.785 --> 00:24:40.545
And he said, why don't you look at that?

00:24:40.545 --> 00:24:49.320
Look at because my first reaction was like, oh, no.

00:24:49.320 --> 00:24:51.020
I'm I'm a researcher now.

00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:52.780
I'm not a bereaved individual.

00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:57.995
And I have to tell you, I was so ashamed of my reaction.

00:24:58.295 --> 00:25:04.055
It made me realize that I had internalized the stigma that is so that is so great in our culture.

00:25:04.055 --> 00:25:07.755
It's it's everywhere in our culture around this topic of suicide.

00:25:07.895 --> 00:25:09.195
And I thought, you know what?

00:25:10.130 --> 00:25:19.750
Nobody knows more about this from the inside out than me, and I really should be doing something to help suicide bereaved folks, because it's such a miserable experience of loss.

00:25:19.890 --> 00:25:25.345
Giving them hope and doing some research to see if there if indeed it's possible to grow from this trauma.

00:25:25.345 --> 00:25:40.240
And so actually, this is while I do suicide prevention research among my college, my university, involved in, you know, sort of clinical treatment, my real love in terms of research and sort of the area of research that I do primarily is is post traumatic growth research.

00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:44.560
And so I've looked, at I've gone beyond suicide bereaved parents.

00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:46.820
I now embed this in everything I do.

00:25:47.040 --> 00:25:55.665
And I've I've worked looked with military samples, doing all sorts of, you know, sort of evaluations of organizations from a post traumatic growth perspective.

00:25:55.885 --> 00:26:00.385
So this really has become sort of my anchor in terms of my research.

00:26:02.205 --> 00:26:24.025
In terms of I mean, apart from sort of anecdotal, you know, stories around the impact of this kind of loss, you know, we think about the sort of the breadth of this loss and also the fact that, you know, like I said, post traumatic growth is something that we've had around for, you know, years and years and years, but we've only begun to sort of quantify it and look at it more as a scientific kind of construct.

00:26:25.445 --> 00:26:29.465
Suicidology and suicide prevention research is also fairly new.

00:26:29.925 --> 00:26:37.380
The the term suicidology, the study of suicide is in the in the community, the suicidology community is only about 50 years old.

00:26:37.380 --> 00:26:39.800
So it's a pretty new area of science.

00:26:40.100 --> 00:26:44.760
So when I talk about the science of suicide, I'm talking about sort of this general kind of new science.

00:26:45.060 --> 00:26:48.680
And so part of this new science is really getting our hands around numbers.

00:26:49.165 --> 00:26:54.685
Sort of the, you know, data collection part, getting coroners to more accurately report suicide deaths.

00:26:54.685 --> 00:26:56.465
This has been a real problem in our country.

00:26:56.765 --> 00:27:06.550
Having good data collection, having states that are really engaged in getting more information around individuals who die violently by suicide, you know, getting information on the circumstances.

00:27:07.170 --> 00:27:12.790
So this is something that has is also relatively new in terms of getting our hands around the impact.

00:27:13.170 --> 00:27:19.605
What we know is that over forty seven thousand Americans die by suicide every year in The United States.

00:27:19.745 --> 00:27:21.425
It's the tenth leading cause of death.

00:27:21.425 --> 00:27:32.805
And the the real problem with this is that the other nine the the other 10 leading causes or the other nine leading causes of death are fairly, static.

00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:34.800
But suicide is still fluid.

00:27:34.860 --> 00:27:36.940
We're seeing increases every year.

00:27:36.940 --> 00:27:40.380
Now is that because of better data reporting, or is it increasing?

00:27:40.380 --> 00:27:43.680
We really don't know, but it's it's pretty scary, frankly.

00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:48.595
We know that individuals, primarily males, are dying by suicide.

00:27:49.775 --> 00:27:51.775
That's because they tend to use more lethal means.

00:27:51.775 --> 00:27:53.475
You all probably know that.

00:27:53.695 --> 00:27:59.155
You know that, probably also that women attempt suicide more frequently, but men are dying because of the lethal means.

00:27:59.330 --> 00:28:02.310
Another thing I also wanna say is about nomenclature or language.

00:28:02.450 --> 00:28:13.345
You know and one of the things that the suicidology community has done is really developed more sensitive, language around suicide.

00:28:13.345 --> 00:28:35.140
So instead of and I I train all my students to try to remove the term committed suicide or committing suicide from their vernacular because what we now know is that a lot of not only does it add to the stigma and the lack of help seeking for suicidal individuals, but it really stigmatizes those individuals who have who have died by suicide and also stigmatizes the families.

00:28:35.280 --> 00:28:54.580
So when you're working with suicide bereave their end of the age spectrum.

00:28:54.640 --> 00:29:01.380
So either those who are young, 15 to 24, adolescents and adults, and then those who are older, 65.

00:29:02.080 --> 00:29:07.535
But since 2010, we've seen an increase in people in the middle of their lives.

00:29:07.535 --> 00:29:11.075
So individuals who are, you know, 35 to 64 years of age.

00:29:11.295 --> 00:29:13.855
And there's been a lot of question, like, why is this happening?

00:29:13.855 --> 00:29:18.670
Well, the data for suicide tends to lag to two years.

00:29:18.670 --> 00:29:20.110
It takes two years.

00:29:20.110 --> 00:29:25.970
So the 2017 data is the most recent data that we have because it lags about two years.

00:29:26.350 --> 00:29:36.705
But what we realized about 2010 data is that actually, in 2008, economic downturn, that was probably one of the drivers for the increase in suicide.

00:29:37.005 --> 00:29:39.245
But there's also some thinking about cohort effect.

00:29:39.245 --> 00:29:42.465
Is this a cohort perhaps that uses more drugs and alcohol?

00:29:43.165 --> 00:29:45.265
You know, they're more sort of risk taking.

00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:55.120
And in fact, a lot of, a lot of scientists have looked to Robin Williams' death as sort of an example of this uptick in people in the middle middle of their lives.

00:29:56.460 --> 00:29:57.322
We know that over a million Americans attempt suicide every year.

00:29:57.322 --> 00:30:09.625
Nearly ten million Americans nomenclature, we call, individuals who have attempted but survived, we call them suicide attempt survivors.

00:30:10.100 --> 00:30:17.800
And then those individuals who have lost loved ones to suicide, we call those suicide loss survivors or suicide bereaved or suicide survivors.

00:30:17.940 --> 00:30:22.420
So like I said, there's a whole language around this, but I think it's important to kind of use the right language.

00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:25.160
Otherwise, you know, we kinda don't know what we're talking about.

00:30:27.035 --> 00:30:32.975
But he wrote a mainstream book, which I think in and of itself was just brilliant, to get at a larger group of people.

00:30:33.195 --> 00:30:40.250
And while it's, a little bit dated, 2005, this Why People Die by Suicide really beautifully describes his theory.

00:30:40.250 --> 00:30:41.950
And the theory goes like this.

00:30:42.730 --> 00:30:45.870
There are generally three things that make suicide possible.

00:30:46.970 --> 00:30:51.390
There is this perception of no longer belonging, and we call it thwarted belongingness.

00:30:51.610 --> 00:30:53.470
So a person feels like they're alone.

00:30:53.745 --> 00:31:10.780
So if you think about a combat veteran who's coming back from combat, and they've been away for, let's say, a year, and they feel disconnected from their family, from their social organizations, from their children It's called Calm Counsel lethal means.

00:31:10.880 --> 00:31:15.360
It's through the suicidepreventionresourcecenter.org, sprc.org.

00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:20.000
And there's also another really great resource at Harvard University called Means Matters.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:21.860
Means Matters, I think it's .org.

00:31:22.175 --> 00:31:27.555
Really wonderful resources to help clinicians learn how to talk with individuals about means safety.

00:31:29.215 --> 00:31:37.520
We also have uncovered over just the past couple of years, you know, when we think about standard of care, standard of care in working with suicidal individuals is what?

00:31:37.580 --> 00:31:38.780
What's typically done?

00:31:38.780 --> 00:31:49.120
I mean, I work with a lot of clinicians out in Oklahoma, and when they hear, I train I've I've, like, trained tons of clinicians out in Oklahoma in CAMS, because the entire state of Oklahoma is being trained in CAMS.

00:31:49.575 --> 00:31:55.195
But what do they do out in Oklahoma when somebody says suicide to them in in the therapy room?

00:31:55.975 --> 00:31:57.035
What do they do?

00:31:57.095 --> 00:31:57.915
What are they?

00:31:58.295 --> 00:31:59.755
What what were you gonna say?

00:32:00.535 --> 00:32:01.095
Well, yeah.

00:32:01.095 --> 00:32:01.995
Medicate hospitalization.

00:32:02.215 --> 00:32:02.695
Oh, no.

00:32:02.695 --> 00:32:03.815
You gotta stop right there.

00:32:03.815 --> 00:32:04.440
Shut them down.

00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:05.800
We're going to hospital right now.

00:32:05.800 --> 00:32:07.820
Or they immediately will hospitalize them.

00:32:08.040 --> 00:32:11.500
There's no discussion beyond, you know, or medication.

00:32:12.040 --> 00:32:13.400
Medication only approaches.

00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:16.940
So standard of care currently is hospitalization and using antidepressants.

00:32:17.705 --> 00:32:28.685
But the problem is this new science of suicide has suicide prevention has really taught us that there's limited or mixed evidence supporting medication only approaches in managing suicidal risk.

00:32:29.385 --> 00:32:31.520
And also, there's zero evidence.

00:32:31.520 --> 00:32:33.200
Marshall Linehan loves talking about this.

00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:37.280
There's zero evidence to support inpatient psychiatric care for suicide risk.

00:32:37.280 --> 00:32:45.415
In fact, there's, new evidence to show a cumulative risk conferred by repeatedly hospitalizing people.

00:32:45.415 --> 00:32:50.075
So one of the things I do is I train my students, if you're gonna hospitalize, do it judiciously.

00:32:50.695 --> 00:32:55.195
You don't do that as sort of a first, you know, reaction to somebody being suicidal.

00:32:57.820 --> 00:33:05.740
A part of this new science of how to understand suicide, so not just sort of the clinical treatment, but the impact of suicide.

00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:16.175
It's not just the numbers, then, you know, capturing better numbers, but also understanding who is really impacted by these experiences, by these by these particularly very public deaths.

00:33:16.175 --> 00:33:26.495
So when you think about, you know, Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, I mean, I had just gotten back from from Ireland the day before Anthony Bourdain died, and I used to DVR him.

00:33:26.495 --> 00:33:27.795
I loved him.

00:33:28.280 --> 00:33:36.120
And my husband and I were in Ireland together and we had multiple conversations about wouldn't Anthony Bourdain love this meal, wouldn't he just love, you know, like all of these things.

00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:40.780
And I remember when I got off the plane and came came home the next day, I was thinking, I can't believe he's gone.

00:33:40.935 --> 00:33:44.395
And I didn't even know him, but I felt deeply impacted by his death.

00:33:44.855 --> 00:33:49.415
And so it's it's confusing, these deaths, you know, and the impact they have on people.

00:33:49.415 --> 00:34:02.350
So so I was actually part of a research team that looked at instead of looking at people, you know, we typically have thought about the impact of suicide being more about kin relationships, you know, blood relationships.

00:34:02.650 --> 00:34:13.815
So we've looked at, you know, the family, the mom, the dad, the siblings, the spouse, the children of but we really understand, survivorship or the impact to be more on a continuum.

00:34:13.815 --> 00:34:16.635
So you've got individuals who are suicide exposed.

00:34:17.495 --> 00:34:21.995
Then you've got individuals, sort of as a part of that, people who are actually affected by the death.

00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:26.480
And then as a part of that, you've got people who are suicide bereaved, both short and long term.

00:34:27.580 --> 00:34:33.820
And when you think about the potential types of individuals in each category, you know, these are individuals we we don't typically don't think about.

00:34:33.820 --> 00:34:40.565
So if somebody kills themself in a hotel room, what about the maid who finds that that person?

00:34:40.565 --> 00:34:53.770
And and they that's probably not the first person that they found, or first responders, or let's say that person's therapist or their doctor, you know, people that they went to church with, people that they were in sporting, you know, clubs with.

00:34:54.310 --> 00:34:59.370
But like and in my case, you know, with Anthony Bourdain, you know, I was just a fan of his, you know.

00:35:00.230 --> 00:35:10.445
So that really the the the broad numbers of people that can be considered suicide exposed is, you know, people that we really didn't think about previously, we include, we include in that category.

00:35:10.585 --> 00:35:16.045
And people who are affected, we find them to be slightly, slightly closer in proximity.

00:35:16.105 --> 00:35:18.285
So there's a sort of a perception of closeness.

00:35:18.505 --> 00:35:21.600
So I felt like I knew Anthony Bourdain, but I really didn't know him.

00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:32.080
But somebody who might be affected by his death would be, got a first responder, you know, his therapist, anyone who discovered the body, you know, classmates, coworkers, all of these kinds of people.

00:35:32.080 --> 00:35:40.635
And then, of course, suicide bereaved, short and long term, would be again these same people, but those who felt either close or very close to that individual.

00:35:41.095 --> 00:35:49.015
So I suspect, Eric Rippar, who was Anthony Bourdain's best friend, who also found his body, I cannot imagine how devastated he must be.

00:35:49.015 --> 00:35:53.640
And he certainly would be in the suicide bereaved short or long term category for sure.

00:35:53.640 --> 00:35:59.580
But the one thing I think we have really underestimated is the impact of patient death on therapists.

00:36:00.520 --> 00:36:17.185
The American Association of Suicidology has a wonderful task force called the Clinician Survivor Task Force, and it was created, it was originally created for clinicians who had family members who died by suicide, but now it's really being used for clinicians who have had patients die by suicide.

00:36:17.245 --> 00:36:22.730
And they need some place safe to go to talk about their feelings of loss, of feeling responsibility.

00:36:23.670 --> 00:36:25.690
And so it's a wonderful, wonderful resource.

00:36:26.710 --> 00:36:45.480
What we found, on the study team that I worked at the University of Kentucky is that suicide exposure, just by being suicide exposed, it actually confer, it it it, people who have been suicide exposed have higher levels of both depression, anxiety, suicide attempt.

00:36:45.480 --> 00:36:54.540
There was a study done in England that showed, college students who had been suicide exposed and felt close to the individual, actually had higher levels of suicide attempt as well.

00:36:54.840 --> 00:37:02.505
We find that closeness is also associated with mental health symptoms among suicide exposed, not just depression, but PTSD and also prolonged grief.

00:37:04.005 --> 00:37:16.210
What we found in this study was also pretty remarkable, because for years and years the suicidology community, they kept touting this number that for every person who died by suicide, there were six people who were profoundly impacted.

00:37:16.510 --> 00:37:19.650
Well, there was actually no empirical support for that whatsoever.

00:37:19.870 --> 00:37:28.625
They just adopted it from actuaries who calculated the numbers of individuals who were impacted by deaths when an airline crashed.

00:37:28.765 --> 00:37:30.445
And so actuaries came up with the number six.

00:37:30.445 --> 00:37:32.685
There were six people who would get a death payout.

00:37:32.685 --> 00:37:36.920
And so we just took that number and said, okay, we're gonna use it for, you know, for our population as well.

00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:38.360
And actually, there was no empirical support.

00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:50.105
So actually, our study did very sophisticated, calculations, statistics around this, and found out that for every death by suicide, there were a hundred and thirty five people who were exposed.

00:37:50.165 --> 00:37:51.785
They'd be in that exposed category.

00:37:52.085 --> 00:37:56.645
But then about thirty percent of those individuals felt close or highly close.

00:37:56.645 --> 00:38:03.450
So forty eight of the hundred and thirty five actually felt close or highly close, and they themselves may need intervention or services.

00:38:03.450 --> 00:38:07.550
So those would be the individuals who had depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.

00:38:08.890 --> 00:38:22.995
You know, I think the issue though of faith, so when we think about, sort of, the breadth of exposure and the individuals who really are feeling, you know, very confused about how to, how to process this or think about this within the context of their faith.

00:38:23.055 --> 00:38:24.735
You know, I think about about, E.

00:38:24.735 --> 00:38:28.495
Betsy Ross who wrote this book, it's a little bit dated, called Life After Suicide.

00:38:28.495 --> 00:38:33.320
And, you know, she writes about the fact that she was ambivalent about praying for her husband's soul.

00:38:33.700 --> 00:38:41.380
But it was her pastor, Pastor David, who really provided her comfort reassuring her, encouraging her to pray for her husband's soul.

00:38:41.380 --> 00:38:50.605
And he reminded her that the early Christians prayed for the souls of those departed Christians, who had killed themselves to avoid Roman torture and assassination.

00:38:50.745 --> 00:38:57.565
And the fact that the stigma around this stigma, you know, promulgated by the church, really only occurred later.

00:38:58.585 --> 00:38:58.825
K.

00:38:58.825 --> 00:39:02.605
Redfield Jamieson also writes in her beautiful memoir, Night Falls Fast.

00:39:02.830 --> 00:39:08.550
You know, she writes about her suicide attempt and, she also asked, you know, where was God in all of this?

00:39:08.550 --> 00:39:09.470
You know, where was God?

00:39:09.470 --> 00:39:10.450
Where had he been?

00:39:10.590 --> 00:39:14.430
And she also writes about the healing effects that can come from a really caring ministry.

00:39:14.430 --> 00:39:19.835
So she also makes, as a scientist, as somebody who's a suicide attempt survivor, writes about this beautifully.

00:39:20.615 --> 00:39:23.675
My friend Kay Warren, I don't know if you all know who Kay Warren is.

00:39:23.815 --> 00:39:28.075
Her husband wrote, she and her husband wrote the book The Purpose Driven Life as Rick Warren.

00:39:28.455 --> 00:39:29.975
She's the co founder of Saddleback Church.

00:39:29.975 --> 00:39:34.330
I was actually with her today at the National Action Alliance's meeting, and she and I were talking.

00:39:34.330 --> 00:39:35.770
I was telling her I was gonna be here tonight.

00:39:35.770 --> 00:39:40.810
She was really excited, because she lost her son Matthew six years ago.

00:39:40.810 --> 00:39:43.150
It'd be six years ago next month to suicide.

00:39:43.210 --> 00:39:46.545
And this was this is a devastated mother.

00:39:46.545 --> 00:39:50.485
This is a woman who has been traumatized by her son's death.

00:39:50.705 --> 00:39:55.905
And she said so beautifully last year at a talk she gave at the American Association of Sociology Conference.

00:39:55.905 --> 00:40:00.485
She said, surviving my son's death was barely survivable with my faith.

00:40:00.680 --> 00:40:03.820
Without it, I can't imagine it being survive, survivable.

00:40:05.480 --> 00:40:08.940
She also says that you can't live without hope.

00:40:09.480 --> 00:40:13.395
I knew that somehow, some way, I was going to have to rebuild hope.

00:40:13.395 --> 00:40:14.755
My son died by suicide.

00:40:14.755 --> 00:40:17.815
How could I rebuild hope in the face of losing him in that way?

00:40:17.875 --> 00:40:24.275
And you know, her words, and by the way, she and Father Rolheiser did this beautiful video together called Reclaiming Life.

00:40:24.275 --> 00:40:25.620
This is a picture of it right here.

00:40:26.100 --> 00:40:52.615
And I would encourage, you know, maybe your department to get this video and, you know, have it in the library or, or in the collection, because it really speaks beautifully to this, the importance of faith, and the, and within the context of these, horrible experiences, and the necessity of faith leaders and clinicians who have, you know, who are of faith, really being willing to talk with individuals who are suffering greatly.

00:40:53.300 --> 00:41:02.360
And I would have to say it it this really resonates with me because I don't think I had a resource available to me other than my faith in the wake of my husband's death.

00:41:02.820 --> 00:41:21.705
So, you know, I really encourage all of you who are who are in this business to really, you know, think about, maybe, you know, getting some specialized training or reading more or watching videos or just really kind of digging deep to become competent to talk with individuals about their experience of loss within the context of their faith.

00:41:22.210 --> 00:41:28.550
And we think about, you know, the church and the church's contribution to sort of this stigma, you know, for the better part of two millennia.

00:41:29.170 --> 00:41:31.970
The church has contributed to, the stigma.

00:41:31.970 --> 00:41:36.355
It started with Augustine, you know, who equated the sixth commandment, thou shalt not murder to suicide.

00:41:36.575 --> 00:41:39.875
And, of course, Thomas Aquinas wrote and argued against suicide.

00:41:40.495 --> 00:41:54.160
Others though have also suggested that, you know, while the the Bible doesn't really directly say anything about suicide, in fact, the sort of benign representations of suicide in the Bible, you know, others have said that Christ never recommended it.

00:41:54.700 --> 00:41:57.100
Christians should live by faith and trust God.

00:41:57.100 --> 00:42:04.560
It that it cuts people off from the possibility of repentance and, in fact, there might be some sort of diabolical, you know, possession.

00:42:04.620 --> 00:42:12.705
And, of course, you know, for for, you know, centuries people were not allowed to be buried within, you know, church cemeteries.

00:42:13.245 --> 00:42:16.925
Although that changed with the advent of Vatican two.

00:42:16.925 --> 00:42:21.970
Also Protestants, I mean, there was a lot of social stigma that really reached its height in the Middle Ages.

00:42:21.970 --> 00:42:25.570
You know, leading reformers continued to argue against suicide.

00:42:25.570 --> 00:42:28.930
In fact, John Wesley, wrote the thoughts on suicide.

00:42:28.930 --> 00:42:34.530
He saw suicide as really the, deserving the harsh, harshest of measures and severe punishment.

00:42:34.530 --> 00:42:36.310
He thought this was a sort of a good thing.

00:42:37.235 --> 00:42:46.295
The current Roman Catholic view, I don't know, I mean, I'm sure many of you have a, probably greater knowledge than I do of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

00:42:46.435 --> 00:43:00.930
But how I understand it and how a lot of individuals, who are Catholics or people of faith, who study suicide prevention, we understand it this way, that while it is it is considered a sin, it is also not an act of free will.

00:43:00.930 --> 00:43:05.110
And because it's not an act of free will, there is a diminishment of responsibility.

00:43:05.415 --> 00:43:12.775
And, of course, you know, as culture has progressed along and we begin asking, you know, these questions of ourselves, where is God in this?

00:43:12.775 --> 00:43:29.370
We also like to believe that, you know, God is, a forgiving, compassionate God And that God could not possibly condemn our loved one, much like Dante did, you know, to, he, you know, condemned decedents to, to the inferno, that God does not do that and understands.

00:43:30.710 --> 00:43:41.955
And so I think that a lot of this sort of ongoing, you know, punishment of individuals who are suicide bereaved, you know, at these funeral masses and then the decedent themselves.

00:43:41.955 --> 00:43:45.555
I think that this is something that, we have to really address.

00:43:45.555 --> 00:44:02.775
And one of the things that I'm doing with the National Action Alliance is really pushing the Faith Communities Task Force to do much more training of clergy, bringing them in because a lot of clergy have no idea that they are really in a position to, not just minister but also provide good information to people.

00:44:02.775 --> 00:44:07.275
People would rather talk to their clergy member about their mental health issues than a mental health professional.

00:44:07.495 --> 00:44:12.155
So they are really in the perfect position to be talking if they are competent to do so.

00:44:13.415 --> 00:44:24.090
Father Charles Ruby is also, along with father, Ron Rolheiser, is somebody who's been engaged in suicide prevention efforts and outreach postvention efforts to suicide bereaved for many many years.

00:44:24.090 --> 00:44:30.510
For over forty years, in fact, he's run the loving outreach to suicide survivors of suicide in the archdiocese Chicago.

00:44:31.035 --> 00:44:34.575
And he says, there are still some priests who view suicide as a mortal sin.

00:44:34.795 --> 00:44:37.295
That has been categorically denied by church leadership.

00:44:37.755 --> 00:44:46.715
He said, it is critical to the healing process for priests and church leaders to talk openly with parishioners and avoid fear mongering over the church's view of suicide.

00:44:46.715 --> 00:44:59.470
So So I think this is a discussion that we all must have and as Catholics and as people who, care deeply about the suffering of individuals with mental illness, you know, people who are suffering there are many roads to Rome.

00:44:59.895 --> 00:45:05.115
And, only about fifty percent of people who die by suicide actually have a diagnosable mental illness.

00:45:05.255 --> 00:45:12.395
So it's a behavior that is also engaged in with a lot of people who just have very limited repertoire of problem solving skills.

00:45:12.455 --> 00:45:18.820
So So I think we have to have conversations open and candid and informed by science conversations about this topic.

00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:27.360
Somebody who really, was important in my path, to doing what I'm doing today was Reverend James Clemens.

00:45:27.360 --> 00:45:32.275
He was actually an Emeritus Professor at Wesley Theological Seminary here in the DC area.

00:45:32.975 --> 00:45:35.235
He was a Biblical, scholar.

00:45:35.535 --> 00:45:46.190
He was also an ordained Methodist minister and he founded an organization years ago in the dark ages of suicide prevention called Organization for Attempters and Survivors of Suicide and Interfaith Service.

00:45:46.490 --> 00:45:52.510
But really the first organization that addressed this issue and this intersection of faith and suicide prevention.

00:45:52.650 --> 00:46:00.135
He also wrote a lot of really nice books that are still some of the only ones that exist, such as What Does the Bible Say About Suicide?

00:46:00.675 --> 00:46:01.815
Sermons on Suicide.

00:46:02.595 --> 00:46:05.655
Also Children of Jonah is about suicide attempt survivors.

00:46:06.035 --> 00:46:07.095
Beautifully written.

00:46:07.155 --> 00:46:14.540
And he and I were actually writing this book together, the suicide funeral, honoring their memory, comforting their survivors.

00:46:15.720 --> 00:46:20.040
This started a long time ago, and, he was unfortunately killed.

00:46:20.040 --> 00:46:23.340
It was an accidental train accident up in Gaithersburg, actually.

00:46:24.745 --> 00:46:35.065
And, so I had to shelve this because I was in the middle of my training and, I ended up meeting Rabbi Dan Roberts, man of faith, man of God, also suicide bereaved.

00:46:35.065 --> 00:46:36.925
He lost his father when he was 10.

00:46:37.065 --> 00:46:54.255
He is also a thanatologist, so he is very well known in the thanatology, the, you know, the death studies area, and has, was sort of like the go to rabbi for people who were grieving or grieving suicide death and became an, a kind of a national leader in, in that community.

00:46:54.635 --> 00:47:04.095
So he and I actually ended up finishing the book and this book is really to address the dearth of information, the dearth of training among seminarians and clergy.

00:47:04.800 --> 00:47:08.980
You know, most clergy don't get any kind of training if they've gone to seminary.

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:21.515
And, it's my understanding I'm not clergy, but according to clergy members that I know, including Rabbi Dan, the suicide the funeral of an individual who died by suicide is one of the hardest sermons to ever formulate.

00:47:21.515 --> 00:47:28.255
And so the idea with this book was to develop, template homilies and sermons by a broad range of faith perspectives.

00:47:28.635 --> 00:47:39.850
So we have not just Catholic, but Jewish, Buddhists, I mean, Methodist, Baptist, every every, every faith is represented in this book with the exception of Greek Greek Orthodox.

00:47:40.550 --> 00:47:43.290
And that's because, there is a disagreement.

00:47:44.150 --> 00:47:55.705
Greek Orthodox, they really, do not, policy wise, are not in agreement with most faith perspectives, and so we just chose not to include that.

00:47:55.845 --> 00:48:02.265
But the idea is to give clergy and and seminarians some idea about how to perhaps, manage this issue.

00:48:02.540 --> 00:48:06.300
And also, it it gives a lot of good sort of recent science information.

00:48:06.300 --> 00:48:08.640
How do you think about this from the scientific perspective?

00:48:09.020 --> 00:48:10.960
Also issues of self care and postvention.

00:48:12.220 --> 00:48:14.860
But also perspectives written by a broad range.

00:48:14.860 --> 00:48:26.925
So we've got sort of opinion editorial type pieces that are written by these, faith leaders as well to to sort of speak to clergy and seminarians, about how to think about this topic.

00:48:27.065 --> 00:48:34.770
One of the things that we're finding is that it's not only helping, clergy and seminarians, but it's probably helping suicide bereaved people as much as anybody else.

00:48:34.770 --> 00:48:36.950
People of faith who have nothing out there.

00:48:37.010 --> 00:48:52.695
So those of you who are interested in writing, care about this topic, and, have, a degree that will, such as clergy member, you know, you will have, you know, an endless opportunity to write about this topic, because there's certainly a hunger and a need for this.

00:48:53.235 --> 00:48:57.335
I'm also part of, like I said, the National Action Alliance's Faith Communities Task Force.

00:48:57.395 --> 00:49:08.010
National Action Alliance is part of the advent of this kind of cultural shift toward thinking about suicide, from a more scientific perspective, but then also enacting public policy.

00:49:08.550 --> 00:49:15.185
This, emerged out of an early blueprint that was created for suicide prevention in America.

00:49:15.185 --> 00:49:16.805
It's now a public private partnership.

00:49:17.105 --> 00:49:20.325
And like I said, one of the task forces, the Faith Community Task Force.

00:49:20.465 --> 00:49:21.905
We have this wonderful website.

00:49:21.905 --> 00:49:24.805
I would encourage, you all to visit the FaithHopeLife.

00:49:26.145 --> 00:49:28.945
We actually have a new website, and we do a variety of things.

00:49:28.945 --> 00:49:35.630
One of the things that we do is we we really wanna give faith communities and faith leaders resources.

00:49:35.630 --> 00:49:38.690
So how do you respond to a member who's at risk for suicide?

00:49:38.830 --> 00:49:42.450
How do you respond to somebody who's had a loved one die by suicide?

00:49:42.855 --> 00:49:49.115
We provide worship and spiritual resources, bulletins, flyers, things like that, other resources for mental health promotion.

00:49:49.415 --> 00:49:56.795
So Kay Warren was talking today about what they're doing now at Saddleback, and they actually have monthly meetings to talk about mental health issues.

00:49:57.000 --> 00:50:03.660
And they bring in hundreds of people to these meetings, kind of just providing support to individuals who are struggling with mental health issues.

00:50:04.120 --> 00:50:11.180
We also have, this this next September, will be the third annual National Weekend of Prayer.

00:50:11.720 --> 00:50:15.945
One of the things that we realized faith communities did, we all had in common we all had in common is we pray.

00:50:16.485 --> 00:50:21.225
And so we the idea was to get faith communities and joined in this effort.

00:50:21.365 --> 00:50:35.320
So now we, we have a campaign called the national weekend of prayer, which encourages all faith perspectives, whether you worship on Sunday or worship on Saturday or worship on Friday, to pray for individuals who are at risk for suicide.

00:50:35.540 --> 00:50:39.555
And then also to pray for those individuals who have perhaps lost a loved one to suicide.

00:50:39.795 --> 00:50:42.775
So I would really encourage you to go on the website and check this out.

00:50:43.155 --> 00:50:49.655
I am really lucky to have a wonderful faith leader in my community, Bishop John Stowe.

00:50:50.835 --> 00:51:01.410
Unlike other previous bishops, I have to be honest with you, who did not respond to my letters or my pleas or my phone calls, Bishop John Stowe has been an amazing ally.

00:51:01.790 --> 00:51:02.690
He really has.

00:51:05.070 --> 00:51:17.975
And, I I get emotional talking about him because, it would be such a it would have been such a wonderful, boon to me personally to have somebody like this around when I first had my experience of loss.

00:51:18.995 --> 00:51:36.705
But he actually did not only did the entire diocese, he pushed out this material about the National Weekend of Prayer, and they're doing all that they can possibly do within our diocese to sort of raise this issue, to to create, you know, opportunities for people who are suffering, either suffering with suicidal crises or suffering from loss.

00:51:37.005 --> 00:51:40.705
But he also did a beautiful homily on World Suicide Prevention Day.

00:51:40.925 --> 00:51:43.245
And I was stunned, and it was just beautiful.

00:51:43.245 --> 00:51:44.305
So I'm very grateful.

00:51:44.365 --> 00:51:53.640
And I just want you all to know that even though, you know, we've got a lot of work to do, there are some there are some faith leaders who get this, and they are certainly models for everybody else.

00:51:53.640 --> 00:51:57.020
And so that is I appreciate your all's attention.

00:51:57.560 --> 00:52:03.135
I thank you all so very much for coming tonight, and, let's open up to questions, I guess.

00:52:19.250 --> 00:52:22.070
Any questions or comments or thoughts?

00:52:23.250 --> 00:52:24.010
I gotta be honest with you.

00:52:24.010 --> 00:52:27.270
I was a little worried about speaking with you all tonight, because I thought, oh my gosh.

00:52:27.410 --> 00:52:29.475
These people know the Catechism better than I do.

00:52:29.715 --> 00:52:31.655
They know they know their stuff.

00:52:32.035 --> 00:52:32.775
Yes, ma'am.

00:52:32.835 --> 00:52:33.795
Well, definitely comment.

00:52:33.795 --> 00:52:35.955
I just wanna thank you so much for your talk.

00:52:35.955 --> 00:52:38.855
This was so helpful in so many ways.

00:52:39.635 --> 00:52:44.080
So really thank you for sharing with us your story and giving us hope.

00:52:45.580 --> 00:52:45.760
Mhmm.

00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:46.120
Moving forward.

00:52:46.120 --> 00:52:46.300
Mhmm.

00:52:46.300 --> 00:52:46.800
Yeah.

00:52:47.900 --> 00:52:48.400
Thanks.

00:52:49.820 --> 00:52:50.320
Yes.

00:52:50.700 --> 00:52:53.980
I'm actually from Kentucky too, so I just wanna say pull over from home state.

00:52:53.980 --> 00:52:54.220
Yeah.

00:52:54.220 --> 00:52:54.860
Where are you from?

00:52:54.860 --> 00:52:55.420
Where are you from?

00:52:55.420 --> 00:52:55.920
Lawrenceburg.

00:52:56.275 --> 00:52:56.775
Lawrenceburg.

00:52:57.075 --> 00:52:57.315
Yeah.

00:52:57.315 --> 00:52:57.955
And you're Frankfurt.

00:52:57.955 --> 00:52:58.455
Yeah.

00:52:58.515 --> 00:53:13.120
So, my question is being aware that so many people, do have suicidal thoughts and such a taboo topic in a lot of ways.

00:53:13.260 --> 00:53:24.255
How can we be aware of the people around us and respond in ways when we make them feel comfortable to talk about it if they're having suicidal issues?

00:53:24.735 --> 00:53:25.855
So this is the thing.

00:53:25.855 --> 00:53:29.855
And I there's so much to to convey to you all, and there just wasn't enough time.

00:53:29.855 --> 00:53:37.155
There are so many myths around suicide, and one of the big myths is that if you talk about it, it'll put the idea in their heads.

00:53:37.535 --> 00:53:42.560
It's kind of like people who say, you know, like, it's kind of like the idea about kids and sex.

00:53:42.780 --> 00:53:44.940
Like, if you talk about it, it's gonna put it in their heads.

00:53:44.940 --> 00:53:47.920
Well, sorry folks, they're they're already thinking about it, you know.

00:53:48.060 --> 00:53:53.280
And what we know about suicidal people is they've been thinking about it for a very long time.

00:53:54.105 --> 00:53:56.825
There's a a lot of talk about suicide being an impulsive act.

00:53:56.825 --> 00:54:02.905
Actually, there's a lot of evidence that kind of new science of suicidology, suicide prevention, it's not it's not an impulsive act.

00:54:02.905 --> 00:54:10.350
In fact, Thomas Joiner, he wrote a fabulous book, not not only why people die by suicide, but he also wrote a great book called Myths of Suicide.

00:54:10.650 --> 00:54:12.730
And in it, he talks about some of the myths.

00:54:12.730 --> 00:54:16.890
One of them being it's non impulsive, and he has all the science around that.

00:54:16.890 --> 00:54:20.330
But also, talking about it is not gonna make people think about it.

00:54:20.330 --> 00:54:26.295
In fact, what it's gonna do is how you, you you know, it's not just what you say, but it's how you say it.

00:54:26.295 --> 00:54:31.835
How you convey kind of non judgment, sort of an open, you know, attitude, you know.

00:54:32.135 --> 00:54:35.355
Asking somebody, you're not thinking of suicide, are you?

00:54:35.415 --> 00:54:37.355
You know, what does that convey to them?

00:54:38.530 --> 00:54:40.290
Not thinking about suicide, are you?

00:54:40.290 --> 00:54:40.790
Yeah.

00:54:40.850 --> 00:54:41.250
Yeah.

00:54:41.250 --> 00:54:42.550
Shame, shut them down.

00:54:42.690 --> 00:54:44.710
They don't want you don't really wanna know the answer.

00:54:44.850 --> 00:54:48.390
But asking the question, are you having thoughts of suicide?

00:54:48.690 --> 00:54:49.350
You know.

00:54:49.490 --> 00:54:56.445
And then talking with them about it in kind of a non judgmental way, like you're trying to solve this problem, uncover.

00:54:56.445 --> 00:54:59.185
You're curious with them about what's going on.

00:54:59.485 --> 00:55:05.585
You know, I liken suicidal thoughts to kind of having a sore throat, and you have other kind of upper respiratory symptoms.

00:55:05.725 --> 00:55:07.485
And you're thinking, yeah, should I go see the doctor?

00:55:07.485 --> 00:55:08.685
Should I go see the doctor?

00:55:08.685 --> 00:55:10.020
And then you feel you feel worse.

00:55:10.020 --> 00:55:12.100
You feel more congested, and you start having a temperature.

00:55:12.100 --> 00:55:13.560
You're like, okay, I'm gonna go see the doctor.

00:55:13.620 --> 00:55:15.060
To me, suicidal thoughts are like that.

00:55:15.060 --> 00:55:19.960
They're not gonna kill you, but it certainly is a red flag and indication that you need to see a professional.

00:55:20.100 --> 00:55:22.605
Somebody competent to treat that person.

00:55:22.605 --> 00:55:25.185
Not somebody who's just gonna say, oh, we got to take it to the hospital.

00:55:25.325 --> 00:55:26.945
Or, oh, here's a prescription.

00:55:27.165 --> 00:55:34.305
You know, somebody who's really willing to sit with you in the distress that you're in, and explore why you're suicidal.

00:55:34.525 --> 00:55:36.750
So I would encourage just training.

00:55:37.630 --> 00:55:45.570
Getting trained in CAMS, getting trained in CALM, so you can talk with people about, you know, access to lethal means, you know, means safety.

00:55:46.030 --> 00:55:47.970
Just getting real with people.

00:55:52.655 --> 00:55:53.155
Yes.

00:56:03.900 --> 00:56:04.400
Mhmm.

00:56:04.940 --> 00:56:06.654
So as someone who's dreams Mhmm.

00:56:06.711 --> 00:56:08.560
How do you, I guess, watch out for how these dreams are affecting them and whether they're able to cope?

00:56:08.700 --> 00:56:13.520
That's one of the reasons I do this exercise, because I wanna be able to monitor and check-in and find out.

00:56:13.580 --> 00:56:16.540
So most of these experiences are long ago.

00:56:16.540 --> 00:56:17.180
They're past.

00:56:17.180 --> 00:56:24.625
I mean, they've worked through these issues or they're in therapy, you know, I mean, I encourage them to be in therapy throughout their training.

00:56:24.765 --> 00:56:29.025
But they've usually worked through many of the issues that put them at risk.

00:56:29.085 --> 00:56:30.365
We did have a student last year.

00:56:30.365 --> 00:56:31.485
She was a school psych student.

00:56:31.485 --> 00:56:36.910
We have a school psychology program and they also, the school psychology graduate students take my class as well.

00:56:37.290 --> 00:56:44.570
And, we had a school psych student, one of them who was recently suicide bereaved, and she came to me before the class started and said, I don't think I should take your class.

00:56:44.570 --> 00:56:46.030
I just can't talk about this issue.

00:56:46.115 --> 00:56:49.415
And I said, actually, I think this is the perfect time to take this class.

00:56:49.555 --> 00:56:51.395
And at the end of the semester, she thanked me.

00:56:51.395 --> 00:56:52.915
She said, you're absolutely right.

00:56:52.915 --> 00:56:54.615
I'm not scared of this issue anymore.

00:56:54.755 --> 00:57:05.850
I've had to address my own feelings, my own feelings of loss and overwhelming grief, And now I know how to talk with suicidal students about, you know, what's going on without my fear that my own stuff get in the way.

00:57:05.850 --> 00:57:11.265
I had another student who was actually having suicidal thoughts, and I was able to get her some help.

00:57:11.665 --> 00:57:12.945
And it, it, it kind of the same thing.

00:57:12.945 --> 00:57:17.425
It was, we were able to help her and get her, you know, the help that she needed at the time.

00:57:17.425 --> 00:57:21.665
But it's, it's rare that it's currently going on, but sometimes things get triggered.

00:57:21.665 --> 00:57:25.980
So I like to know where kind of the risk is in the class so I could check-in with people and that's why I do it.

00:57:25.980 --> 00:57:26.480
Yeah.

00:57:27.100 --> 00:57:27.600
Yes.

00:57:44.655 --> 00:57:56.600
I don't, you know, I I think, I don't know that I can competently address this, because I, I don't I don't think I have the training that allows me to have the language.

00:57:56.600 --> 00:57:58.300
I can only talk about my own experience.

00:57:59.000 --> 00:58:08.775
I think if I just wasn't in need of that support, given the fact I mean, what was what was the alternative?

00:58:08.775 --> 00:58:10.875
I know in my situation, I had no alternative.

00:58:11.335 --> 00:58:20.075
This was what gave me hope, gave me sustenance, allowed me to suffer, allowed me to marry my suffering with Christ on the cross.

00:58:20.450 --> 00:58:22.630
It was the only thing I had.

00:58:23.490 --> 00:58:30.550
So I I I I guess I'd never even, thought about the spiritual trauma of it, because it was the only thing I had.

00:58:30.610 --> 00:58:30.850
Yeah.

00:58:30.850 --> 00:58:33.010
I don't That's probably not a very good answer, folks.

00:58:33.010 --> 00:58:33.510
Sorry.

00:58:33.730 --> 00:58:34.230
Yeah.

00:58:34.530 --> 00:58:35.030
Yeah.

00:58:35.665 --> 00:58:35.745
Yeah.

00:58:35.745 --> 00:58:36.245
Sure.

00:58:37.265 --> 00:58:37.745
Yeah.

00:58:37.745 --> 00:58:41.925
I I wanna echo what some of the welcome and the gratitude.

00:58:42.225 --> 00:58:44.885
I really appreciate this talk a lot.

00:58:46.385 --> 00:58:51.900
And amidst it, this is my first exposure to someone, who is a suicidologist.

00:58:52.440 --> 00:58:52.840
Mhmm.

00:58:53.480 --> 00:58:56.860
And it was very eye opening in a lot of ways.

00:58:57.400 --> 00:59:07.195
Some of my research has touched on the public policy side of physician assisted suicide, especially we as mental health providers.

00:59:08.295 --> 00:59:14.335
Our role of the the dubious ethics of our of our potential participation of the law sort of Mhmm.

00:59:14.455 --> 00:59:23.860
Requires mental health providers, mental health providers, a couple of mental health providers in certain states to sign off on assisted suicide.

00:59:24.800 --> 00:59:41.585
Thinking about what you've shared with us and specifically your work, on the national level for suicide prevention, where does where does that very sticky hot button topic of physician assisted suicide, where does that fall?

00:59:41.725 --> 00:59:44.650
This is you have but yeah.

00:59:44.650 --> 00:59:46.510
You've hit the nail right on it.

00:59:46.730 --> 00:59:48.410
Really sticky and really hot right now.

00:59:48.490 --> 00:59:49.370
Your hand or his body?

00:59:49.370 --> 00:59:49.690
No.

00:59:49.690 --> 00:59:52.270
Really sticky and really hot right now in the suicidology community.

00:59:52.330 --> 00:59:59.935
I will tell you, historically, suicidology has seen physician assisted suicide as separate from suicide.

01:00:00.475 --> 01:00:09.550
But I think more recently, the implications, you know, of sort of living in a culture of death that's more death oriented, you know, life is just, you know, sort of disposable.

01:00:09.770 --> 01:00:15.930
This has been an issue that has been raised, and there are some definite profound camps within the suicology community.

01:00:15.930 --> 01:00:21.790
And I will tell you, Thomas Joyner, the guy who wrote Why People Die by Suicide, is amazing researcher, you know.

01:00:22.235 --> 01:00:30.175
I mean, when when I raise the issue of faith in suicide, prevention, most mental health people kind of shriek and go, oh, you don't wanna go there, you know.

01:00:30.395 --> 01:00:35.340
But, and the interesting thing is Thomas Joyner is, he's, an atheist, I think.

01:00:35.420 --> 01:00:35.580
Think.

01:00:35.580 --> 01:00:37.340
He's an atheist or he's agnostic, one or the other.

01:00:37.340 --> 01:00:41.760
But anyway, he feels profoundly that we are on a slippery slope.

01:00:42.300 --> 01:00:46.480
And he is, he is definitely opposed to physician assisted suicide.

01:00:47.180 --> 01:00:57.265
And so he wasn't predictable, sort of, his thinking about this, but it also tells you how people are in our community are thinking about this very, very differently.

01:00:57.265 --> 01:01:01.285
So I don't know that we've come to any consensus whatsoever, but there are definite camps.

01:01:01.665 --> 01:01:02.165
Yeah.

01:01:02.225 --> 01:01:02.785
Thank you.

01:01:02.785 --> 01:01:03.285
Sure.

01:01:03.825 --> 01:01:13.020
Yes, sir.

01:01:31.340 --> 01:01:31.820
Yeah.

01:01:32.140 --> 01:01:35.100
Did you have any thoughts about the distinct Oh, yes.

01:01:35.100 --> 01:01:35.580
Oh, yes.

01:01:35.580 --> 01:01:37.580
I'm a I'm a CAMS clinician.

01:01:37.580 --> 01:01:40.880
I'm a CAMS clinician, and this is part of our CAMSian philosophy.

01:01:41.660 --> 01:01:41.980
Yeah.

01:01:41.980 --> 01:01:43.100
We don't treat a diagnosis.

01:01:43.100 --> 01:01:44.455
Well, number one, we're treating a human being.

01:01:44.455 --> 01:01:44.695
Right?

01:01:44.695 --> 01:01:45.095
Okay?

01:01:45.095 --> 01:01:51.195
But we also don't this is sort of part of the new science of suicide prevention, suicidology, suicide treatment.

01:01:51.815 --> 01:01:57.510
For too long, clinicians have treated the diagnosis somehow thinking that suicide stuff's gonna go away.

01:01:57.510 --> 01:01:59.770
They see suicide as a symptom and a constellation.

01:02:01.110 --> 01:02:04.790
And so if you treat the bipolar or the depression or the anxiety it goes away.

01:02:04.790 --> 01:02:06.170
Well, that's not the case.

01:02:06.550 --> 01:02:10.390
Actually, you have to treat suicide as a targeted treatment, and that's what CAMS does.

01:02:10.390 --> 01:02:11.130
So, yeah.

01:02:12.405 --> 01:02:13.125
Do you agree?

01:02:13.125 --> 01:02:13.525
I do.

01:02:13.525 --> 01:02:14.005
Yeah.

01:02:14.005 --> 01:02:15.565
I studied with the the Oh.

01:02:15.765 --> 01:02:19.205
So When was this?

01:02:19.765 --> 01:02:20.505
Three years.

01:02:21.685 --> 01:02:22.825
Did you and I communicate?

01:02:22.965 --> 01:02:23.125
We did.

01:02:23.125 --> 01:02:25.145
Did I put you in contact with father Corbett?

01:02:25.470 --> 01:02:26.485
You did.

01:02:26.501 --> 01:02:27.516
I did.

01:02:27.531 --> 01:02:31.639
Well, it's so good to finally meet you.

01:02:31.654 --> 01:02:32.154
Yes.

01:02:32.169 --> 01:02:34.731
You met you in person.

01:02:34.746 --> 01:02:35.246
Yes.

01:02:35.261 --> 01:02:39.884
It's so good to meet you finally in person.

01:02:39.899 --> 01:02:40.399
Yes.

01:02:40.414 --> 01:02:40.914
Okay.

01:02:40.930 --> 01:02:41.430
Yes.

01:03:01.100 --> 01:03:01.180
Yeah.

01:03:01.180 --> 01:03:03.020
So a couple of things come to my number one.

01:03:03.740 --> 01:03:08.885
There were there have been three suicides on the campus of University of Kentucky.

01:03:08.885 --> 01:03:12.265
Like I said, it's not my university, but it's the one to the north.

01:03:12.965 --> 01:03:16.885
I've actually been to the the parish that serves the University of Kentucky community.

01:03:16.885 --> 01:03:19.865
I've actually been there a couple of times to speak in the last six months.

01:03:20.160 --> 01:03:28.340
And, one of the things that they have done is they do I mean, they do some I wouldn't say mental health ministry, but they definitely make people available.

01:03:28.640 --> 01:03:30.820
They're very attuned to the community.

01:03:31.360 --> 01:03:47.495
I think you have to and I did a a what we call a postvention for the parish, where people came in who were who were I went to school with the individuals who died or the one with the person with the faculty member, people who were impacted, who were exposed and impacted by the deaths.

01:03:47.555 --> 01:03:51.770
So we we just talked about the issue of suicide and the impact.

01:03:51.770 --> 01:03:56.190
So you kind of raise it generally, but there are also these wonderful things called gatekeeper training.

01:03:56.330 --> 01:04:00.030
If you all have heard of this, question, persuade, and refer is one of them.

01:04:00.090 --> 01:04:01.230
There's also assist.

01:04:01.610 --> 01:04:03.530
I think these are really wonderful training.

01:04:03.530 --> 01:04:08.845
And I I personally think, like, everybody, you know, should be trained and have gatekeeper training.

01:04:08.845 --> 01:04:19.105
We also do this at my university, EKU, where we provide it to entire you know, we're trying to get the entire university, 16,000 students trained in in question, persuade, and refer.

01:04:19.370 --> 01:04:30.830
And gatekeeper training really gives some very basic skills, you know, listening, what to look for, what to say to somebody, and then, you know, ideas about, you know, kind of getting access to people who are professionals, not leaving them alone.

01:04:30.970 --> 01:04:32.890
So I think gatekeeper training is wonderful.

01:04:32.890 --> 01:04:38.465
But I think when it comes to children and adolescents, this is also a very special sort of problem.

01:04:38.465 --> 01:04:40.385
And I think schools need to be doing a better job.

01:04:40.385 --> 01:04:58.720
I know in Kentucky, they have this absurd, they have these absurd, whatever state laws that are unfunded, unpoliced, where they have they've got a requirement to mandate, I think, that all high school students have to take one hour every fall on suicide prevention.

01:04:58.720 --> 01:05:01.620
And it's literally something that the principal has gotten off the Internet.

01:05:02.000 --> 01:05:09.435
And so then we'll take to the to the, student, like, the auditorium, and they could gather all the students together and they talk with them about suicide.

01:05:09.975 --> 01:05:17.870
And some of the scary things that I've heard well, number one, there was a child who thought that went home and killed himself after one of these, school presentations.

01:05:18.330 --> 01:05:21.770
But also, a colleague of mine, her niece came home one day and said, hey.

01:05:21.770 --> 01:05:23.870
I learned seven new ways to kill myself today.

01:05:24.170 --> 01:05:28.650
So very unsafe messaging through some of these large, you know, endeavors.

01:05:28.650 --> 01:05:31.630
I think you have to get people who know what they're doing involved.

01:05:31.925 --> 01:05:53.640
So Ohio has a wonderful hospital in Columbus called Nationwide Children's Hospital, and they're very engaged in providing school districts with something called, signs of suicide, gatekeeper training, where they train everybody in the schools, and they also help the the students, you know, look for the signs of suicide and what to do when, you know, one of their peers is perhaps at risk.

01:05:53.640 --> 01:06:03.275
So I think gatekeeper training is really important, but also, you know, people in a community need to just not respect people's privacy so much.

01:06:03.415 --> 01:06:05.495
I know that's the one thing that I realized right away.

01:06:05.495 --> 01:06:07.415
I respect my husband's privacy a little too much.

01:06:07.415 --> 01:06:09.355
I will never make that mistake ever again.

01:06:09.495 --> 01:06:16.820
And but I think we need to show get beyond ourselves in terms of caring about people and saying, you know, you don't see them yourself, or you haven't thought of suicide.

01:06:17.040 --> 01:06:21.760
So really getting beyond that kind of fear of of talking about suicide and calling it what it is.

01:06:21.760 --> 01:06:25.540
Probably a long winded response, but I think you raise a really important point.