December 23, 2011
FROM THE ARCHIVES: WHY WOULD ANYONE VOLUNTARILY MISS WINTER?:
Experts debunk December suicide myth (Karen Goldberg Goff, 12/23/09, Washington Times)
"It is totally a myth," says Dan Romer, research director of the Adolescent Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "December is actually a low point for suicides."Mr. Romer has been tracking media reports of the December suicide myth in America for more than 10 years. He started at the turn of the millennium, when there was an uptick in the number of people who thought the world would end when the calendar hit 2000.
At that time, he found just 23 percent of news reports debunked the suicide myth. By 2006, 91 percent of stories were mentioning that the believed increase was not true. By last holiday season, however, Mr. Romer found that the number of reports debunking the myth was down to 62 percent, meaning more than one-third of stories were still reporting that suicides increase over the holidays.
The peak time for suicides is May, says Paula Clayton, a psychiatrist and medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Because it starts getting warm.
[originally posted: 12/23/09]
Posted by oj at December 23, 2011 9:58 PM
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