Hi! My name is Robert Rice, I’m a rising Junior at Florida State University, and my major is psychology with a double minor in sociology and religion. I have had the pleasure of being an undergraduate research assistant in Dr. Thomas E. Joiner’s Laboratory for the Study and Prevention of Suicide Related Conditions and Behaviors since January 2023. The IDEA Grant will be supporting my Honors in the Major (HITM) project that I am conducting through the Joiner Lab. The title of my project is “Respite Through Suicide: Escapism for Marginalized Young-Adults”.
The study aims to investigate the relationship between escapism and suicidal ideation in young adults belonging to minority groups – this specific population was chosen because minorities at more at risk for suicide than majority-aligning populations (e.g. Mitchell & Li, 2021; Surace et al., 2020; di Giacomo et al., 2018). Of additional importance is the age range – suicide is the second leading cause of death amongst young people and suicide rate for ages 10-24 has increased by over 50% since 2000 (Disparities in Suicide , 2024). The goal of my investigation is to further develop how escapism is conceptualized in relation to suicide – within psychology, escapism can be defined as coping via repression of awareness of stressors, but broadly speaking it refers to the desire for relief from everyday life (Stenseng et al., 2012). This will be done through a mixed methods design, primarily focused on qualitative research collected through two separate focus groups.
Throughout my life, I have felt the devastating toll of mental health difficulties on loved ones and those close to them. Following the loss of my cousin who died by suicide, I have committed to dedicate my life towards helping others who struggle with the burden of psychopathology. I believe that my lived experiences with suicidality gives me critical insight that other psychology researchers – without a personal connection to the form of psychopathology they’re studying – may lack. Hence why I chose to focus my HITM project on the desire to escape through suicide, given it is a very nuanced motivation for taking one’s life and is often overlooked. Additionally, I am interested in the topic of escapism because it can manifest into maladaptive coping strategies, such as drug abuse, that can then cause an individual to become more at risk for suicide, creating a vicious cycle.
The first steps in my HITM project involved running a pilot study, of sorts, to see if entrapment accounted for the relationship between emotional invalidation and suicidal ideations in a fully minoritized sample – I actually just presented a poster with this project’s findings at FSU’s Undergraduate Research Symposium on 4/3. Entrapment can be defined as feelings that arise from unbearable situations and/or thoughts and feelings (De Beurs et al. 2020). Within the context of the pilot study, entrapment served as a proxy for escapism – for the desire to escape to be present, one must feel trapped. Entrapment was found to account for the relationship between suicidal ideation and emotional invalidation. It was during the process of amassing background information for the pilot study, and even more-so when conducting the literature review for my HITM project, that I began to realize just how little preliminary data existed regarding the direct relationship between escapism and suicidal ideations.
One of the two leading theories of suicide is the integrated motivational volitional model of suicide – in essence, this theory emphasizes the role of entrapment in suicidal ideations (O’Connor et al., 2018). The other leading theory of suicide is Dr. Joiner’s interpersonal theory of suicide (2009) – see below for the models of both respective theories. Despite a lot of research looking at entrapment and suicide, there exists little research looking at escapism and suicide (see Baumeister, 1990).
The entirety of my HITM project is centered around two separate focus groups (each with approximately 25 participants) – one is expected to be completed over the summer, and the other is expected to be completed during Fall 2024. The first will be used as a framework to ascertain more detailed information regarding escapism in the second focus group. Over the 2024 summer semester, my primary goal is to conduct a focus group – there will be a secured audio recording of the session to assist with later qualitative coding. The focus group will develop the taxonomy of escapism in relation to suicide by allowing participants to describe their experiences with the desire to escape, alongside their thoughts on the perspective of suicide as a form of escapism.
Additionally, researchers will inquire about the participants’ thoughts on the validity of preexisting measures of entrapment (Gilbert & Allan, 1998) and escapism (Stenseng et al., 2012), made available to them via physical printouts. Following the completion of the focus group held over the summer, open/initial coding (Saldaña, 2009) will be conducted based on the recorded audio from the focus group, and cross-sectional analyses will also be conducted based on the collected measures. Over the summer, in preparation for the focus group, I will need to create online surveys for my measures, make flyers for participation in the project, and spread these flyers are FSU’s campus and virtually through social media. In the meantime, I will continue to revise the current state of my HITM thesis (see below for a sketch of my proposed model) and conduct further literature review.
Over the past year, my time spent under the mentorship of Dr. Joiner has vastly prepared me to undertake this project. As a part of my role in the lab, I administer the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (CSSRS), an interview-based measures of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, to clinical outpatients, and collecting electrocardiography data. Prior clinical experience with these suicide risk assessments will help me smoothly conduct them for at-risk participants of the focus group I plan to lead over the summer. Furthermore, I regularly interact with diverse patients and listen to them share their suicidal thoughts. Through this experience, I have realized how vulnerability impacts the discourse between patient and clinician – if it weren’t for the Joiner Lab’s emphasis on the development of validation skills, my ability to facilitate a safe environment for them to express their suicidality would not be the same. The knowledge I’ve gained allows me to empathize with diverse lived experiences that I might’ve not personally undergone, and this will carry over onto how I interact with participants of my study.
From my perspective, the secondary purpose of undertaking the HITM project is to provide clarity to what steps I will take in my career following undergraduate education. Truthfully, I am uncertain whether or not I want to pursue a career in research and get a Ph.D. in clinical psychology or pursue a career in private practice and get a M.S. in social work. Conducting undergraduate research will inform me what path I want to take for graduate school and beyond. Additionally, if I were to choose the Ph.D. route, gaps found within the literature review for my project will provide me with topics to investigate in the future. Ultimately, my end goal is transition to private practice as a cognitive behavioral therapist, regardless of what path I take for graduate school!
References
Baumeister R. F. (1990). Suicide as escape from self. Psychological review, 97(1), 90–113.https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.97.1.90
De Beurs D, Cleare S, Wetherall K, Eschle-Byrne S, Ferguson E, B O’Connor D, et al. Entrapment and suicide risk: the development of the 4-item entrapment scale short-form (E-SF) Psychiatry Res. 2020;284:112765.
di Giacomo, E., Krausz, M., Colmegna, F., Aspesi, F., & Clerici, M. (2018). Estimating the Risk of Attempted Suicide Among Sexual Minority Youths: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA pediatrics, 172(12), 1145–1152. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.2731
Disparities in Suicide. (2024). https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/disparities-in-suicide.html
Gilbert, P., & Allan, S. (1998). The role of defeat and entrapment (arrested flight) in depression: an exploration of an evolutionary view. Psychological Medicine, 28(3), 585–598. doi:10.1017/S0033291798006710
Joiner, T. E., Jr., Van Orden, K. A., Witte, T. K., & Rudd, M. D. (2009). The interpersonal theory of suicide: Guidance for working with suicidal clients. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/11869-000
Mitchell, T. O., & Li, L. (2021). State-Level Data on Suicide Mortality During COVID-19 Quarantine: Early Evidence of a Disproportionate Impact on Racial Minorities. Psychiatry Research, 295, 113629–113629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113629
O’Connor, R. C., & Kirtley, O. J. (2018). The integrated motivational–volitional model of suicidal behaviour. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 373(1754), 20170268–20170268. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0268
Saldaña, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Ltd.
Stenseng, F., J. Rise, and P. Kraft. 2012. “Activity Engagement as Escape from Self: The Role of Self-Suppression and Self-Expansion.” Leisure Sciences 34 (1): 19–38. doi:10.1080/01490400.2012.633849.
Surace, T., Fusar-Poli, L., Vozza, L., Cavone, V., Arcidiacono, C., Mammano, R., Basile, L., Rodolico, A., Bisicchia, P., Caponnetto, P., Maria Salvina Signorelli, & Aguglia, E. (2020). Lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation and suicidal behaviors in gender non-conforming youths: a meta-analysis. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30(8), 1147–1161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-020-01508-5
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