More Garbage Assessment of Suicide

If Dr. Shawn Christopher Shea ever serves as a plaintiff expert, I would appreciate being told about it. I would intervene in the case, and seek to have a mistrial, with costs assessed to the assets of this peddler of garbage science.

"A sound suicide assessment approach or protocol is made up of 3 components:

• Gathering information related to risk factors, protective factors, and warning signs of suicide.

• Collecting information related to the patient’s suicidal ideation, planning, behaviors, desire, and intent.

• Making a clinical formulation of risk based on these 2 databases.

Practical approaches to integrating these 3 aspects of a suicide assessment have been well delineated for adults and adolescents.^1-8 Innovative systematic approaches, such as the Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS) approach created by David Jobes,⁹ have also been developed for integrating all 3 tasks while providing collaborative intervention, which may help lay the foundation for a more evidence-based protocol for suicide assessment. Recently, Joiner and colleagues¹⁰ have delineated a promising approach based on the interpersonal theory of suicide, which gracefully integrates all 3 components necessary for a suicide assessment."

Garbage.