Contact: Leah Barbour
An international authority in suicide-prevention research will visit Mississippi State in early February to share prevention strategies and increase understanding.
Thomas Joiner, a licensed clinical psychologist and Florida State University faculty member, will present "Why People Die by Suicide" during his Feb. 3 presentation at 4 p.m. in McCool Hall's Taylor Auditorium.
Joiner's visit is part of the MSU Connection project funded by a Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The College of Arts and Sciences and its psychology department are co-sponsoring Joiner's discussion.
"My talk is for the general public about a public health problem that affects virtually everyone in some way or another," Joiner said. "This topic is scary for some people, but I have material that makes the suicidal mind easier to understand, and that leads to several prevention implications."
Not only is he the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at FSU, Joiner also directs the institution's Laboratory for the Study of Psychology and Neurobiology of Mood Disorders, Suicide and Related Conditions.
He is a research member of the U.S. Department of Defense-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium, a group of experts working to lower suicide rates among members of the military.
A Newsday review of Joiner's "Why People Die by Suicide" (Harvard University Press, 2005) called the book the "most comprehensive theory yet" to explain how people can choose to take their own lives.
His latest work, "The Perversion of Virtue: Understanding Murder-Suicide" (Oxford University Press, 2014) is available on Kindle, with print editions to be released in March.
For information about MSU suicide prevention efforts, contact Michael Nadorff, assistant professor of psychology and grant project director, at 662-325-1222 or mn487@msstate.edu.