Austen Riggs Clinician Dr. Jane Tillman Wins Grant for Suicide Study

STOCKBRIDGE — Jane Tillman, Evelyn Stefansson Nef director of the Erikson Institute for Education and Research at the Austen Riggs Center, received a significant grant from the Fund for Psychoanalytic Research through the American Psychoanalytic Assoc. for her work, “Follow Up to States of Mind Preceding a Near Lethal Suicide Attempt Study.” In making this award, the review committee indicated this was an important topic for study and may yield valuable information. 

“Suicide is a significant public-health problem,” Tillman said. “Despite a burgeoning research literature that focuses primarily on biobehavioral and diagnostic risk factors, there has been little effective translation of these findings into improved clinical care of suicidal patients.”

Tillman’s project is a follow-up study to “States of Mind Preceding a Near Lethal Suicide Attempt: A Mixed Methods Study,” conducted between 2009 and 2012, which examined protective and risk-factor measures in four groups of adult participants: those without any history of suicidal ideation, those with a history of suicidal ideation, those who had attempted suicide, and those who had made a near-lethal suicide attempt.

The new study, part of a broader Suicide Research and Education Strategic Initiative at Riggs led by Tillman, follows up with these participants to ascertain their clinical course and outcome. Data from the original study will be used to better understand the longitudinal course of psychiatric patients without any history of suicide and those with remitting versus persistent suicidal ideation and/or behavior.

“This longitudinal, naturalistic study of psychiatric outcome in patients, those with and those without suicidal ideation and attempts, will allow us to better understand the psychological change and differential outcomes related to suicide that occur following residential treatment,” Tillman noted.