Transcript The Search for Self and Spirit in Suicidology by David Webb Suicide attempter Student And (apprentice) suicidologist. Seminar on Courageous Research: Exploring new methodologies and innovations in.

The Search for Self and Spirit in Suicidology
by
David Webb
Suicide attempter
Student
And (apprentice) suicidologist.
Seminar on Courageous Research: Exploring new
methodologies and innovations in presenting new knowledge
(Victoria University, October 24th 2002)
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Suicidology, Self and Spirituality
Suicidology - “the science of suicidal behavior”
• of many ‘parent’ disciplines
Self - the ‘sui’ in suicide
• both victim and perpetrator
• but not examined by suicidology - why?
Spirituality - “that which is not material”
• one way, rich in meaning, of knowing the self
• but not examined by suicidology - why?
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A Conceptual Framework - Wilber’s 4 Quadrants
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Types of Research Question - Methods of Enquiry
Qualitative
Quantitative
(Idiographic)
(Nomothetic)
Understand Explain
Predict
Experience Conceptual Process
Control
Outcomes
Heuristic
Narrative
Life stories
Case studies
Experimental
Action research
Integral
Intuitive
Theoretical
Correlational
Hermeneutic Field studies
Textual analysis
Discourse “
Grounded theory
(from Braud and Anderson, p. 38)
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Methods - Capturing the Story
Aim 1: a greater understanding of suicidality
• subjective, personal, lived experience
• rare/unique, ambivalent, paradoxical ...
• what methods can capture this rich complexity?
• art, literature, poetry, music ...
• transpersonal qualitative methods
– “beyond/through the mask/façade”
– beyond personality, beyond psychology, beyond ‘mind’
– inconclusive, ambiguous … but rich in meaningfulness
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Methods - Story as Instrument of Enquiry
Aim 2: to examine/analyse suicidology
• personal story is not the ‘data’ - i.e. no attempt
to analyse/generalise with N = 1
• story as prism to reveal suicidology’s limits:
– impoverished concepts of self
– denial of spirituality
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Methods Need ‘Data’
The absent original voice
“the proper language of suicidology is lingua franca – the
ordinary everyday words that are found in the verbatim
reports of beleaguered suicidal minds” (Shneidman 1966)
• few first-person accounts - taboo alive and well
• suicide a frequent theme in (art) literature
– also frequent suicides among writers
• these often deeply philosophical, spiritual
“there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is
suicide” (Camus 1975)
“to be or not to be, that is the question” (Shakespeare)
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The Great Nest of Being
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Plotinus
Buddhism
Yoga
Aurobindo
Kabbalah
Vedanta
Theosophy
Sufism
St. Teresa
Grof
Steiner
Baldwin
Habermas
Maslow
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Levels/Waves of Consciousness
• derived from Great Nest/Chain
• holarchy - each level includes all inner levels
levels implies:
qualitatively distinct
waves implies :
shaded overlapping boundaries
each level has sub-levels
other systems exist ...
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Layers of the Self
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All Quadrants, All Levels
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References
Braud, W. and Anderson, R (1998). Transpersonal Research Methods for the
Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications
Camus, A. (1975). The myth of sisyphus (J. O'Brien, Trans.). London: Penguin.
Maris, R. W., Berman, A. L., & Silverman, M. M. (Eds.). (2000).
Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology. New York: Guilford Press.
Shneidman, E. S. (1996). The Suicidal Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilber, K. (2000). Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology,
Therapy.
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