Extra Credit Opportunity

Human Development: Extra Credit Opportunity

B. Ruth Hitchcock

            My sister was only nineteen years old when she spiraled into severe depression and began slashing her knuckles and arms with razor blades. After suffering an emotional breakdown, she was forced to drop out of college, and was eventually diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. One day, I came into her room to find that she had overdosed on her medication. She spent the following two nights in the hospital, leaving my family to tremble in our prayers. Today, several years later, my sister is recently married and is voluntarily participating in three psychoanalysis sessions a week. However, I still look back on that period of her life with a mind full of unanswered questions and deeply felt concerns.

            In the textbook, Development Across the Life Span, Feldman states that, “suicide is the third most common cause of death in the 15- to 24-year-old age group… (Feldman, 2010). Although studies indicate that the choice to commit suicide is becoming a more common one for this particular population, there is no one single explanation for this increase. According to the article, Preventive health counseling for adolescents, the “risk factors for suicide in adolescents include active substance abuse, personal history of depression... [and] problems communicating with parents (Stephens, 2006).” Adolescents that tend to be antagonistic, impetuous, and highly isolated from their primary sources of support may also experience suicidal ideations (Bridge, Goldstien, Tina, & Brent, (2002). 

            Adolescents are liable to take their lives by suffocating, hanging, or shooting themselves (Stephens, 2006), and often do so under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Needless to say, adolescents that contemplate suicide are almost always in a stage of heightened distress. As a prospective counselor, it is possible that I may come into contact with an individual that is seriously considering suicide as a viable option. In the article, Treatment of the suicidal adolescent: Death studies, Berman and Jobes state that, at this point, “the person feels a need to die, and yet yearns for intervention, rescue, and life (1994).” In learning how reveal to my future clients a sense of meaning in the midst of such turmoil, I only hope that I can remember that all individuals, no matter how despairing, are in need of hope.

References:

Feldman, R. S. (2006, 2010)  Development across the life span. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson/Prentice Hal

Berman, A., & Jobes, D. (1994). Treatment of the suicidal adolescent. Death Studies,     18(4), 375-389.

Stephens, M. (2006). Preventive health counseling for adolescents. American Family Physician, 74(7), 1151-1156.

Bridge, J., Goldstein, T, & Brent, D. (2002). Adolescent suicide and suicidal behavior. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 47(3-4),