The End of Suicidology

Periodically, researchers express concern about the research conducted on suicide. Back in 1966, Merton Kahne criticised the quality of the research, but more recently, some scholars have declared that we have reached our limits in understanding and predicting suicide. Dan Reidenberg recently wrote an editorial entitled "Healthy debate, frustration, or a field in chaos?" in which he discussed the failure in the United States to reduce the suicide rate (which in recent years has been rising). Cas Soper has argued that there is no empirical reason to believe that predictors of suicide exist, there is no theoretical foundation for believing that risk factors exist, and there is evidence that suicide may be predictably unpredictable! David Lester reviews and discusses these views in this book. He reviews some recent efforts to stimulate the field of suicidology, and finds these attempts lacking. In the major section of the book, Lester presents some recent provocative ideas on suicide that have not hitherto received much attention, such as Brian Mishara's two component model of suicide with life and suicide tendencies, and David Lester and Steven Stack's proposal that suicide may be viewed as a drama staged by the prospective suicide. Might these provocative ideas and others stimulate the field?