Deck 8: Crisis of Lethality

Question 1

On a worldwide basis,about a million people kill themselves each year.​

Answer 1

True

Question 2

According to Shneidman's concept of situational characteristics of suicidal people,the common stimulus in suicide is unendurable psychological pain and the common stressor in suicide is frustrated psychological needs.​

Answer 2

True

Question 3

There is basically little difference in how one goes about assessing a client for suicidal or homicidal ideation.​

Answer 3

False

Question 4

In assessing for suicidal risk,a history of previous attempts is high on the list of factors to consider.​

Question 5

One of the very first things the CIT officer does to get Deborah off the bridge is to simply tell her in a kind but authoritative voice to climb down.​

Question 6

Suicide is almost always an impulsive act.​

Question 7

Suicidal clients may emit behavioral clues which range from purchasing a grave marker for themselves to slashing their wrists as a "practice run."​

Question 8

Seung-Hui Cho's egoistic murder/suicidal rampage at Virginia Tech is characteristically marked with unendurable psyche ache.​

Question 9

Research has established that suicide runs in families.​

Question 10

The suicide rate among children and adolescents has been essentially stable since 1950.​

Question 11

Many times the suicidal person is also homicidal.

Question 12

Discussing suicide with a client will usually cause the person to move toward doing it.​

Question 13

There is essentially no difference country by country in the number of people per capita that commit suicide.​

Question 14

Seung-hui Cho's rampage really does not fit Shneidman's characteristics of suicidal people.​

Question 15

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are invariably synonymous terms.​

Question 16

Each suicide is idiosyncratic,and there are no absolute or universal characteristics which portray all suicides.​

Question 17

A recently suicidal person who begins to show generosity and share possessions is showing signs of renewal and recovery.​

Question 18

Suicide is the leading cause of death of adolescents in the United States.​

Question 19

Crisis management of suicidal behavior is essentially no different than crisis intervention.​

Question 20

Clients who threaten suicide may well do it.​

Question 21

IS PATH WARM is:​

A)an acronym for suicidal warning signs.
B)a standard warning code in a mental health clinic for a potential suicide/homicide.​
C)suicidology language indicating the degree to which a person is following a path to self-destruction.​
D)an acronym of intervention steps to be taken with homicidal/suicidal clients.

Question 22

The Reasons for Living Scale is different than other lethality scales in that:​

A)it focuses only on homicidal ideation.
B)it poses questions about why people would not kill themselves.​
C)it is a faster visual assessment form than the Triage scale.​
D)it is a highly reliable predictor of the who,when,where,how,and why of lethal behavior.​

Question 23

An analysis of the Seung-Hoi Cho suicide/homicide videotape indicates that,immediately prior to his suicide:​

A)he was experiencing helplessness,hopelessness,and abandonment
B)​he was experiencing unendurable psychological pain and frustrated psychological needs.
C)​he demonstrated constricted thinking in that he was apparently unable to engage in alternative thought patterns or optional behaviors and lived in logic tight compartments.
D)All of the answers were indicated in Seung's suicide/homicide videotape.

Question 24

People with strong death wishes are invariably:​

A)impulsive.
B)ambivalent,confused,and gasping for life.​
C)venting their desire to kill themselves.​
D)suicidal for as long as they live.​

Question 25

Whenever a suicidal person,who is not previously known by the crisis worker,is emotionally overwhelmed and immobile,one effective way to break through that immobility is to:​

A)shock the person into reality through shame and guilt or threat of punishment.
B)personalize the communication by establishing a first-name basis if possible.​
C)​create a diversion.
D)gather enough information so as to establish a close and friendly relationship.​

Question 26

In crisis intervention,the possibility of dealing with suicidal or homicidal clients is:​

A)really pretty rare.
B)ever present.​
C)specific to certain groups.​
D)dependent on the interventionist.

Question 27

Research indicates that suicide attempts that "succeed":​

A)increase with the age of the person.
B)decrease with the age of the person.​
C)are not correlated with age.​
D)are correlated more by race than age.​

Question 28

Which one of the following is not listed as a myth about suicide?​

A)Clients who threaten suicide don't necessarily mean it.
B)Persons who commit suicide are insane.​
C)Talking about their desire to kill themselves decreases the danger that suicidal individuals will do it.​
D)Suicide is always an impulsive act.​

Question 29

Which one of the following indicators should not be considered high-risk in terms of suicide potential?​

A)The suicide plan is definite.
B)There is a family history of suicide.​
C)Previous "minor" suicide attempts have been made.​
D)A frantic call to a crisis line to discuss depressed feelings.​

Question 30

Suicidal persons may emit clues including all of the following,except:​

A)syndromatic.
B)behavioral.​
C)​situational.
D)geographical

Question 31

The suicidal/homicidal person who engages in an expressive act of harming self or others is:​

A)engaging in an act designed to reduce psychological pain.
B)​expressing a specific behavioral tendency towards euthanasia.
C)demonstrating one or more of the common myths about client lethality.​
D)manifesting acts that are characteristic of Shneidman's cognitive characteristics.​

Question 32

All of the following statements about statistics on suicide are true,except:​

A)Native Americans kill themselves about 1.5 times more than other Americans.
B)the second leading cause of death among children and teens (behind accidents).​
C)a serious problem in men over age 65 because that segment of the population kills themselves at a rate four times the national norm.​
D)the true number of people who commit suicide is well established.​

Question 33

Which of the following is not a category of assessment dynamics which is of concern to workers who deal with suicidal clients?​

A)Risk factors
B)Warning signs​
C)Suicidal clues​
D)Clinical interview​

Question 34

In an assisted suicide,someone else provides the means (lethal agent)but the person who is dying administers it.In euthanasia:​

A)the person who is dying provides both the means and the administration of the agent.
B)someone else does the administration.​
C)the Hemlock Society provides the necessary support and expertise.​
D)an attending physician provides the necessary support and expertise as legally sanctioned by the state.​

Question 35

In working with suicidal clients,even when they admit their lethal thoughts,confidentiality and privileged information make it legally,ethically,and morally difficult for the crisis interventionist to break confidence.​

Question 36

Almost all suicidal persons reveal:​

A)the same characteristics.
B)some kind of clues.​
C)​some kind of pathological behaviors.
D)nothing,people who want to die will not tell anyone.​

Question 37

The type of suicide by which a person chooses death in the face of a serious,incurable illness is:​

A)dying with dignity.
B)anomic.​
C)egoistic.​
D)hari-kari.​

Question 38

According to Shneidman's concept of situational characteristics of suicidal people,the common stimulus in suicide is unendurable psychological pain and the common stressor in suicide is frustrated psychological needs.​

Question 39

A postvention method of helping people to either gain a better understanding of why a suicide happened or to feel less guilt and responsibility for the deceased's death is:​

A)debunking the myths about suicide.
B)assessing for survivor lethality via the Triage Assessment Form.​
C)establishing a crisis response team.​
D)the psychological autopsy.​

Question 40

Most people who are suicidal feel a high level of ambivalence or inner conflict.​

Question 41

One of the most effective means of worldwide suicide prevention appears to be:

A)getting crisis workers to use the Triage Assessment Form regularly and correctly.
B)analyzing the suicide/homicide notes left behind.​
C)tempering the sensationalism of press reports on it.​
D)educating the general public,mental health professionals,and other agency and institutional personnel regarding the characteristic thinking and behaving of suicidal/homicidal persons.

Question 42

What is the purpose of the psychological autopsy? Why can it be helpful to survivors?​

Question 43

Seung-Hui Cho's videotape manifested which characteristic of Schneidman's typology of the classic suicidal person?​

A)Situational
B)Relational​
C)Motivational​
D)Cho manifested all of the characteristics.​

Question 44

Sometimes crisis workers are devastated and vulnerable to permanent emotional wounds whenever they wrongly believe that they could have or should have prevented a suicide or homicide.The procedures that appropriately counters the guilt,grief,and loss and help crisis workers begin to heal and return to their own previous level of equilibrium and normalcy are:​

A)getting close supervision in future cases like it from a trusted other professional.
B)​conducting a debriefing.
C)​reminiscing about the person and event with the client's friends and family.
D)using cognitive restructuring to normalize the event.

Question 45

Durkheim called a suicide type in which the person felt estranged and alienated from society a ________ suicide.​

A)egoistic
B)mental deficiency​
C)​kari-kari
D)chaos

Question 46

What goes into a "Stay Alive" contract?

Question 47

Considering the myth that when a person has attempted suicide and pulls out of it the danger is over,a crisis worker should remember that if such a client seemed unusually serene and nonlethal toward self:​

A)an important danger signal for that client would be a period of euphoria following the depressed or suicidal episode.​
B)​then,in case the client committed suicide,it would definitely be an impulsive act.
C)​then,the crisis worker would probably have misinterpreted the client's score on The Triage Assessment Scale.
D)All three of the statements are valid.

Question 48

Discuss the issue of suicide prevention compared to the societal "right to die with dignity" movement.How might cultural values impact on this issue?​

Question 49

The crisis worker who deals with Deborah,the chronic,suicidal,bridge jumper uses:​

A)flooding to blow away her catastrophic all-or-none thinking.
B)dynamic interpretation of past events to ferret out the underlying reasons.​
C)rewards alternative to suicidal behavior and minimizes short term reinforcements for it.​
D)an eclectic set of techniques with this complex case.​

Question 50

​The impact of having failed to save a person who was a client,or the victim of the client,can be overwhelming and can cause the crisis worker to experience what is called:

A)vicarious traumatization.
B)​PTSD.
C)​traumatic reminiscence episodes.
D)countertransference.

Question 51

What are some of the "Don'ts" in managing suicidal clients?​

Question 52

Why does a crisis worker need to have a thorough knowledge of the risk factors that suicidal/homicidal clients might portray? In your response,list several of the risk factors that are considered most serious in times of the client's vulnerability to lethality.​