Robin Williams, depression and the complex causes of suicide

While many people who kill themselves have been experiencing the extreme distress we might think of as depression, that’s not always the case and is rarely the whole explanation. 

This article originally appeared on the Guardian Science Website on the 18th of August 2014 and is reproduced here with permission.

Anne Cooke, Angela Gilchrist and John McGowan

Photo: Eva Rinaldi

As the tributes to the actor and comedian Robin Williams continue, so too do the arguments over the meaning of his death. Suicide is a profound act that touches many, and it would be surprising if it didn’t raise strong feelings. On the one hand we have Shep Smith of Fox News calling Williams a “coward” (he has since apologised). On the other we have a range of articles defending the star, usually along the lines of “don’t blame the guy – he had a mental illness.”

Most of the coverage has encouraged us to see his anguish as a symptom of a sickness as real and biologically based as measles or a broken leg. Just like those afflictions, we’re told, depression can strike anyone out of the blue. A piece by Guardian science blogger Dean Burnett offered a variation on this theme, asserting that depression is an illness and attacking any suggestion that suicidal acts might involve anything but desperation and a wish to escape. While we’re sure that the piece was written with the intention of defending someone in pain, we worry that it contains ways of thinking about mental health that oversimplify complex issues and can be unhelpful.

What we’ve been reading: More DSM, women leaders after Maggie and gun control

The Editors

The first of an occasional series where we ask departmental staff to give a shout out on what they’ve been reading recently.

Does your child sing, laugh, run around and imagine things? Perhaps she has ‘Youthful Tendency Disorder’. We hadn’t come across this before, but the knowledgeable folks at The Onion enlightened us. It might come as shock to realise that the piece linked above was written in the year 2000, affirming the truism that satire gets overtaken by reality. In this case reality is the vast expansion of psychiatric labelling that is likely to result from the new DSM. With the DSM’s forthcoming publication, coverage of diagnostic labels seems especially relevant and we also had a recommendation for this blog by Philip Thomas. It details his complaints to the BBC about their coverage of neuroscience and mental health.

Thinking about different responses to distress we’ve also been looking at the new psychology textbook by Cromby, Harper and Reavy. It aims to be the first undergrad text that ‘reconsiders the traditional emphasis on the biological and psychiatric models’ of mental health. Psychology lecturers please take note.

In the week in which we lost Mrs T much of the discussion of course has been about what Maggie did, and didn’t, mean for women. Our own Jan Burns reckons:

‘The glass ceiling may not be completely broken, but is at least visible and somewhat shattered. What we should be more worried about is the “glass cliff”. Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam’s ground-breaking work at the University of Exeter has shown how women and other minority groups find themselves in leadership positions. Interestingly though these are more commonly those with attached potential risk and criticism. This goes some way to explain those apocryphal tales of “ah, look what happens when a [fill in your particular minority] is in charge”.’

While we’re on conservative values, we also had a ringing endorsement of ‘Why be happy when you could be normal?’  by Jeannette Winterson.  ‘Thought provoking and inspirational, addressing issues of nature and nurture, overcoming adversity, creativity. A unique perspective on mental distress.' is the judgement of Celia Heneage.

For those of you following some of our thoughts on suicide it’s worth drawing attention to the thoughts of the practical ethicists at Oxford talking about current legal cases on assisted suicide. As you may know we also keep an eye on developments in gun legislation in the US. A difficult week for proponents of greater gun control but we hope, if John Cassidy in the New Yorker is to be believed, that it’s not the end of the line. 

Making sense of suicide

John McGowan

“I've danced with a man, who's danced with a girl, who's danced with the Prince of Wales” went the 20s song, written before Edward VIII became King and took a dip in popularity. The case of Jacintha Saldanha, who put through a call to someone who gave out information about the Duchess of Cambridge, ended far more tragically than for the flapper chanteuse. Our hunger for remote royal associations however, seems undimmed.

Speculation about Ms Saldanha (who did not appear to have courted any sort of publicity in her life) has been rampant on a global scale. Her suicide led to a huge array of responses: compassionate neutrality on the part of the royals, self-flagellating guilt from the pranksters, outrage about the lack of support for the family, and consideration of the limits of free speech. 

How are we to understand such an act? Not just in this case but whenever it happens? The possible risk factors for suicide are multiple. Also, as I have argued elsewhere, the potential motivations behind suicide and self-harm are manifold and complex. The act may be about escape, release, anger, revenge or a host of other feelings. It may be accidental, perhaps the seeking of care or an expression of desperation that has gone wrong. People’s motives can be shifting and not always evident, even to themselves. At this stage we don’t actually know if Ms Saldanha’s death was linked to the prank call.