RELEASE ON RECEIPT U.Va.'s SUICIDE PREVENTION PROGRAM, FIRST OF ITS KIND IN THE NATION, PROMOTES AWARENESS AMONG STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Oct. 15 -- It is undoubtedly one of the most complex and troubling aspect of human behaviors. Conceived in a moment of gloom, pain or suffering, a person chooses to put an end to life. While suicide is the outcome of a myriad life factors, it is as varied and complex as individuals themselves, said Dr. Rafael Triana, director of the Center for Counseling and Psychological Services, at the University of Virginia, where a model program in suicide prevention is being pioneered through the Department of Student Health. "You have to take into context the whole life story of a person," he said. "Suicide comes out of suffering, it comes out of alienation ... it comes out of pain." If this assertion is correct, there is a lot of suffering, alienation and pain in society. Suicide accounts for more than 30,000 deaths in the United States each year and, researchers say although reveries about killing oneself is pretty common among the masses, nowhere is that executed more than in young people. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide is the third largest cause of death for people 15 to 24 years of age. This is the only age group in which the rate has tripled in the last three decades. On college campuses nationwide, suicide is the second largest cause of death, second only to accidents. According to the demographics, the rate of suicide at U.Va. is in keeping with the rate on campuses nationwide. Nationally, there are roughly 10,000 reported cases of teenage suicides annually, and it is estimated that the number could be even higher when "suicide equivalent" figures are tabulated. Researchers are now beginning to understand suicidal behaviors, given that they are sometimes difficult, often impossible to predict. U.Va.'s Center for Counseling and Psychological Services is visited by more than 7,000 students annually. The center offers individual and group counseling, outreach programs on stress and depression, and a 24-hour emergency service seven days a week. A suicide prevention program -- the Harrison Bowne "Tersh" Smith Jr. Memorial Suicide Prevention Program, the first of its kind on a college campus, is a component of the center. According to Dr. Virginia Wright, a clinical psychologist, who last year was hired as a suicide prevention specialist, up to 36 percent of students who seek help indicate significant suicidal thoughts, and a good 21 percent of students express thoughts that are serious, although that does not mean that they would act on such impulses. Although in the field of psychiatry there are standard known facts about suicide, what drives a person to that final act of despair is sometimes hard to pinpoint. From the data, this much is known: Women have a much higher rate of attempted suicide but lower rates of actual suicide than men. Put another way, men are more than four times likely to commit suicide than women. And, according to a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, "whites and Native Americans have substantially higher rates of suicide than African Americans, Hispanics or Asians. Seventy-three percent of all suicides in the United States are committed by white men. Firearms account for the largest portion of death, followed by poisoning, among women, and hanging, among men." When fourth-year U.Va. student Sean Bryant hanged himself in his dormitory room on the Lawn last year, it caught many of his friends and acquaintances by surprise. Bryant, a student member of U.Va.'s Board of Visitors, exhibited no suicidal tendencies his friends say, and his death, on the fourth day of finals week, left many talking to counselors and grappling for answers to "why?" Multi-faceted Suicide Prevention Program Wright, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine, was hired from Massachusetts General Hospital -- part of Harvard University -- by U.Va. in 1996 as a suicide prevention specialist to offer advanced training to the center's staff, as well as other University staff who routinely work with students. In addition to providing counseling, a key goal of the Suicide Prevention Program is to reach out to students on campuses nationwide. "The striking thing is that students here are no different than other university students," said Wright of the students who seek counseling in suicide prevention. "We have bright, able students who experience emotional distress at some point in their lives just like other students. Academically, they may be fine, but emotionally they are experiencing some pain; they are desperate to cope with the pain and helping them is our goal." The U.Va. program stresses three basic components to prevention -- education, assessment and research. Under the education component, members of the academic community -- professors, deans, resident assistants and students themselves, are told about the resources at the center, and are taught how to recognize signs of suicidal behavior. Such signs could include, but are not limited to depression, alcohol use, death or divorce in a family, a drive for perfection, social isolation, changes in emotions and eating habits. These "symptoms" can occur singularly or in combination. If they are recognized, a student(s) is encouraged to seek treatment. The assessment component quizzes students in detail to determine their level of distress before either medication or counseling is prescribed, while the research examines the characteristics that might lead to suicide. "Everything is confidential here, but the only time we break that confidentiality is when we believe students may hurt themselves or others. When we have such situations, we also talk to the parents," said Wright. Soon after Bryant's death, the center's 15-member staff that is made up of six full-time psychologists, five social workers and four part-time psychologists, worked with students as part of their "postvention" counseling, which is counseling carried out in schools after a death by suicide. Since very often for young people their most common encounter with suicide is through the death of a peer, the possibility of "cluster" suicide exists. To curb further suicides, the center offers "postvention," which includes individual and group counseling and scrutiny of "at risk" students. "When we think about the risks factors associated with suicide, it is viewed as a process that plays out over time and leads up to the actual suicide," said Wright, adding that in the case of college students, it is a myth to think that they are more prone to suicide at the beginning of the school year and at the time of final exams. "It depends on what in going on in the student's life at the time, and not the academic calendar." Tribute to a Friend U. Va.'s suicide prevention program came to life in part because of the efforts of one man. When retired West Virginia media mogul Lyell Clay made a $500,000 pledge to U.Va.'s center to fund suicide prevention, it was for a deeply personal reason. Clay, a U.Va. alumnus, made the pledge in memory of his lifelong friend and 1949 University graduate Harrison B. "Tersh" Smith Jr. who died in 1957, just three years after receiving an additional degree from the McIntire School of Commerce. The program is in Smith's memory. "Tersh and I were friends from the first year of our lives until his death," Clay said in announcing the gift in 1995. "I believe that anyone who knew him was better for the association. I hope that the Tersh Smith Center will keep alive the memory of a fine friend. Through its programs, and especially the suicide prevention program, Tersh Smith will continue to touch the lives of others." Clay, who has always wanted to pay tribute to his friend in a way that would also benefit today's students, began talks with Counseling and Psychological Services about how his gift would be most effective, and the suicide prevention center "was born." Roughly one year after Wright was hired, staffers speak with pride about the uniqueness of the prevention program. Psychological Services and the suicide prevention program is now temporarily housed at 204 University Way as expansion construction begins on a new wing on the present site at student health. In addition to continuing the multi-faceted approach to prevention, U.Va. plans to work with high schools in the community, and other institutions of higher education in the state and nationally to share data and nuances of the model program. ### October 14, 1997 For more information please contact Dr. Rafael Triana at (804) 924-5556. Television reporters should call our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.