Understanding Suicidology: UCLA Professor Dr. Mark Kaplan on the Science of Suicide

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Hello, I'm Jason Carrasco, and welcome to Finding Your Voice.
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I'm a licensed marriage family and child therapist and a lifelong student of human resilience.
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For years, I've sat with people in some of their hardest moments, moments that have challenged their identity, their spirit, and sometimes their will to keep going.
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One thing I've learned is that human beings can survive the unthinkable.
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And with support, a person's pain can become great purpose.
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This podcast is a home for stories about mental health, human rights, and the courage it takes to move through darkness and toward healing.
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And these episodes you'll hear from survivors, clinicians, and everyday people who are brave enough to speak honestly and bold enough to use their voice.
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You deserve hope, you deserve healing, and you deserve to be heard.
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Welcome to Finding Your Voice.
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Let's get started.
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All right, everybody, welcome to another episode of Finding Your Voice.
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Once again, my name is Jason Carrasco, licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and today's guest has dedicated much of his distinguished career to understanding one of the most complex and painful public health challenges facing our society.
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And that topic is on suicide.
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Dr.
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Mark Kaplan is a professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
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He earned his doctorate in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, holds master's degrees in both social work and public health, and completed postdoctoral training in preventative medicine at the University of Southern California.
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Supported by the National Institutes of Health and several private foundations, Dr.
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Kaplan's research uses population-wide data to examine suicide risk among veterans, older adults, men, and other vulnerable populations.
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His work has explored suicide, mortality, self-harm, alcohol use, social and economic conditions, and the significant role firearms play in suicide deaths.
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Dr.
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Kaplan received the Distinguished Investigator Award from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in recognition of his important contributions to the field.
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He's participated in state and federal suicide prevention initiatives, served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and currently serves as a scientific advisor to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
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What makes his work so important is that behind every one of these statistics is a human life, a person shaped by relationships, health, culture, community, opportunity, loss, and circumstances that numbers alone can't fully capture.
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So in today's conversations, we're going to look beyond common assumptions about suicide and explore what decades of research can teach us about men, veterans, older adults, alcohol, firearms, and the conditions that can place someone at greater risk.
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Most importantly, we'll discuss what his knowledge can teach us about prevention, human connection, and hope.
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So, Dr.
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Kaplan, it is truly an honor to welcome you to Finding Your Voice.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
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Thank you so much, Jason.
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I'm delighted to be here.
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You know, to open up, again, like we stated in the introduction, you spent decades studying some of the most painful moments in human life.
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So, what was it that first drew you to suicide research?
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And then also, more importantly, what has sustained you emotionally through this work for all these years?
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Yeah.
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Well, thank you for that question.
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You're right.
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I I have been involved in suicide work, what's what's referred to as suicidology, for decades.
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My first exposure to the field and to the real problem of suicide, what we we often don't talk about it, but it's as I like to say, it's on everyone's plate.
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Everyone has either indirectly or directly been impacted by someone they know, a loved one who's who's died by suicide, who has been, has, has experienced suicidal behavior, or engaged in some form of self-harm.
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My first exposure to the field was way back when I first started graduate school in public health.
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This was after I had received my MSW, went into public health at University of California at Berkeley.
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There I met in an interview, it was just uh early on.
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I wasn't even sure if I was going to go there or not.
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So that could have been that could have been interesting if I had gone to the other university I was considering.
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It didn't work out that way, so I wound up at Berkeley.
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Fortunately, there I met Professor Richard Sidon.
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Richard Sidon was was was one of the top suicide researchers then, and still today, much of his work is still cited quite a bit.
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And he was, he did some of the early work on individuals who had attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.
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So the Golden Gate Bridge, as you know, has received over the years lots of attention.
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Most recently, about the installation of the uh of the barrier that uh was put.
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Maybe you've seen it.
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And but that was a political battle.
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That was a just a very tough battle to fight to get that installed, a lot of opposition to it.
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And in the end, it it's it probably has saved lives.
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But he interviewed individuals who had uh attempted suicide, had jumped and survived, and followed them to determine if if they had re-attempted or had attempted again.
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And he his work was widely cited, and it was it was more qualitative work, which was very interesting, a very labor-intensive, but very important work in terms of our understanding of you know the suicidal process, that is the trajectory of people who attempt, who only attempt once and don't attempt again.
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So that was the beginning.
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And then from there on, I had various opportunities throughout my training and early career as an academic, as a scholar researcher, to work with different people who were not necessarily trained in suicidology, but were very interested.
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For instance, I some of the perhaps earliest work I did, which still today is cited quite a bit, that is looking at older adults.
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You know, some of my work, as as you you you know, has focused on older men in particular.
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At the point we studied suicide, we realized in older adults, we published that work.
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We wanted to find out what were the trends.
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And what was so striking about that was the heavy reliance on firearms, the numbers of older adults who died.
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And you, you know, we recently published something on older women, but older men, you know, the number of uh older men who were suicidal and attempted suicide with the firearm, that those numbers have continued to go up.
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And in recent years, we've also seen a rise among older women.
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And this is continues, and I should say maybe at this point too, that, you know, when we when we think about the gun violence epidemic in this country, the first thing that you will hear people talk about, or when asked, what's America's biggest gun problem, you know, it's not people rarely mention suicide, which it is.
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There are proportionally more gun deaths in this country are suicides than mass shootings or homicides.
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So it is a problem, and I will probably come back to this in our interaction today, but it is a big problem that is of concern to me.
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But let me go back to something else too.
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I uh at the time when I was first introduced to the field of suicidology, it really was not part of the curriculum, public health curriculum.
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It was not even viewed as a public health problem.
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It for a long time had been viewed primarily as a psychiatric problem.
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It was, you know, the field was dominated by people who are trained in psychology, psychiatry, but very few were coming from other fields outside non-mental health professions, such as epidemiologists.
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So I was very interested in how can we frame this problem as a public health problem.
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And uh fortunately, we've we've moved in that direction.
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One thing that it's worth noting is the magnitude of the problem.
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And sometimes we don't really appreciate the fact that nearly 50,000 people die in this country.
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50,000.
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And that might be an underestimate because we simply don't know.
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We might, as a report by the National Academy of Sciences reported some years ago, we might be underestimating the true suicide rate by up to 25%.
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So it might even be higher.
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And then there are those who are actually looking at other forms of self-harm, fatal forms of self-harm, that we don't often involve drugs, involving, you know, we we can there's a long list.
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And we, you know, you you probably have heard or been part of that conversation where, you know, we we have a fairly constricted definition of what suicide is.
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But if we expand that a little bit, you can only imagine the additional cases that would be added to that uh total that I I refer to, the 50,000.
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It is it is on the rise.
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Suicides increased about 40, about 41% from the year 2000 to the year 2023.
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So it continues to rise, about 80% of all suicide decedents.
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Again, there's a difference between what I call suicide mortality and suicide morbidity.
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Those who experience suicidal ideation may experience some uh suicidal behavior, but don't take their lives.
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Most of my work is focused on the mortality side, trying to understand the factors surrounding fatal attempts.
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So 80% of all suicide descendants are males of all ages.
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The rate of suicide rises, and older adulthood has the highest suicide rate.
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With women, when you look at the age distribution, it often peaks in middle years, but there's also a rise in older age.
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In fact, we in that paper that I think you referenced, we found that a significant number of older women are using firearms to take their lives.
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So it's rising, it's it is a it is a significant public health problem, perhaps even what you might call at epidemic proportions.
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And we don't have a good understanding of how to prevent it.
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And we'll get into this a little bit later, but you know, over the years, I've I've stepped back a little bit from narrow, you know, basically being able to argue that, you know, every suicide attempt or suicide more death can be prevented.
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Many can, but there are lots of lots of suicides that just, you know, we don't fully understand.
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They're they're what I would refer to as silent suicides, especially among men, where they did not have that standard profile that we often associate with with suicidal behavior.
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None of the standard psychiatric markers were present.
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So that's a population that is of interest to me.
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And the thing, the final thing I want to say too, is that that's more the case with men analysis we did.
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It was, it was, it was exploratory analysis.
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It hasn't been published yet.
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But we found that about 21% of all, based on these were deaths, males who died by suicide, 21% had none of the markers that we often associate with suicidal.
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In other words, conspicuous absence of those standard, of that standard profile.
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So the question is, how do you prevent those deaths?
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And those are deaths that, you know, I do recall uh some years ago there was a National Book Award, a book that was nominated, entitled, I think it was Suicide Index, Joan Wickersham, if I recall correctly, who wrote a book on trying to come to terms with her father's suicide.
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And I think I I often describe this or quote from the book.
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And what she was trying to understand was on the day of the suicide of her father, it was a very, it was a normal day.
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He was in his study, he was in the house, his wife was still asleep.
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He took a newspaper up to these were days where they would walk from the from the driveway to to the bedroom with the newspaper.
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He took a cup of coffee, went down to his study, took out the gun, and shot himself.
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And, you know, she was, she, she, she, none of this made any sense to her.
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Now, that's one instance, and I don't like to generalize from one case, but it does inform, I think, the conversation that perhaps we need to, you know, step back a little bit, widen our lens a little bit to better understand the crisis that people go through.
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What are the factors that are operating that may precipitate a suicidal attempt?
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Thank you.
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There's so much information that you just, you know, listed for us.
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So thank you very much for that.
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What do you think?
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I'm I'm curious, because like you talked about the crisis, right, that this presents right now.
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Right now, there's a lot more reduction of stigma for mental health therapy, for you know, people being able to seek services.
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There's a lot more services available, you know, to the public to receive services.
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Well, there is, and there isn't.
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There isn't.
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Let me just point out something.
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Yes, please.
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Let's take Medicare, for instance.
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You'd be hard-pressed to find a Medicare plan, maybe Medicare Advantage, maybe some Medicare supplements, Medicap that will cover mental health services.
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But you will be hard-pressed if you're an older person, Medicare beneficiary, to get uh help from a mental health uh practitioner.
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So there are lots of gaps in our system.
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You know, parity, remember the conversation about parity in this country.
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You know, we never achieve parity.
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Let's face it, we are far from having mental health parity.
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But again, not every, you know, I've said this when I studied, uh, we'll get to the veteran suicide problem too.
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One of the things that I recommended was, you know, less less on less of a focus on the mental health issues and more on the transitioning, you know, from military service, you know, trying to cope with lifestyle issues that are often lead to very difficult challenges, very stressful circumstances that often precipitate, you know, some of these crises.
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Maybe social workers instead of psychiatrists.
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Yeah, I hear.
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Yeah.
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And I was, I was kind of referring to not so much the older population, you know, just kind of men, more so in general, or adults and other people in terms of what do you think with with those where there's not that necessarily that gap in those ranges, where is the mental health system missing the mark?
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What what's what are your thoughts on that?
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What are what's that's a really good point.
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And I don't I I'm not gonna put words in your mouth, but think what you're what where you're going with that is that we have a system that doesn't serve men very well.
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You know, just just case in point, most mental health practitioners are women, right?
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Most mental health practitioners train with, you know, in their internships.
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I could ask my wife this question, but many will, you know, when they're doing their internships, are are usually have female patients, unless they work for like the VA or someplace like that.
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So there's just a lack of understanding.
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I think that that's where mental health services, specifically for men, designed for men, are simply not there.
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So I would like to see a, and maybe you know, we may have to wait for a change in federal administration where NIMH and other federal agencies, SAMHSA and others, might be more willing to address this problem.
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But I honestly feel that when we studied older men, again, I know you you're interested in a younger population, you know, we found that most older men didn't want to talk about their problems.
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We did a survey of uh physicians who were managing older adult health and also mental health.
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And, you know, we would often hear from the physicians we interviewed that, you know, sometimes they would see the older man, older person in the male had was there with their with their wife, for instance.
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They would often have to, you know, it was just like trying to pull that patient into the clinic.
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It was, it was very difficult to get them.
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They're very stoic, as you know.
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It's a certain generation that simply does not want to talk about emotions.
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And, you know, as far as the younger generation is concerned, many younger generations are not, you know, we may think we're more open to mental health, but I don't know if that's really true or not.
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I don't know if that's really true.
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Many lots of young boys don't want to talk about their feelings.
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Yeah.
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You know, the the bro culture is not the type of culture that that will help young men talk about their emotions.
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They if they're distressed, if you know, and there's there's a lot going on from social media to relationship problems to you name it.
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Yeah.
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So then not much is not much is really changing then.
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What seems like kind of old belief that males are less open to talk about their feelings, about what's going on with them, to maybe be open with a clinician or or maybe even you know, people that are close to them in general.
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Exactly.
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It sounds like I I think too that you know, I've spent a lot of time talking to, you know, people who are engaged in in interventions, suicide prevention interventions, clinicians, you know, others.
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And I I think there needs to be some recognition that, you know, sometimes to prevent suicide, we need to go, as I said before, going upstream and need to begin talking about things that we don't often think of as connected to suicide, quality of life issues, relationship problems, psychosocial issues, financial issues.
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The list goes on.
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So maybe it's it's important to, as I said earlier, to widen our lens as far as understanding the factors uh contributing to suicidal behavior, but also, you know, in trying to prevent uh suicidal ideation behavior and fatal attempts.
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Guns play a big role.
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And in the many of the suicide incidents that I have studied, there is, there seems to be again an absence of some of those same markers.
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Often what we have seen with gun-related suicides, this goes for men and for women as well, are, you know, the there were there were no earlier attempts, there weren't any earlier attempts, there weren't any of the mental health issues, behavioral health problems, substance abuse problems, none of that is there.
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So it's very intriguing to me that, you know, where do you start?
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Where do you intervene?
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At what point?
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Often they come as a surprise, as was the case of, you know, in the case book, The Suicide Index, that, you know, we we want to, you know, make sense out of something that is almost impossible to make any sense of.
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Yeah.
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Are there any thoughts that you have of why women, the the number of firearm-related suicides has risen for them with with firearms?
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Do you have any thoughts on that?
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Well, some some time ago, and I and I I was being quite serious.
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I wasn't, you know, I wasn't trying to be flippant or anything, but I was I was suggesting that it is tantamount to the the masculinization of suicide among women.
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Guns.
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When we think of guns, we we don't think of women, we think of men primarily.
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Incidentally, I I I teach uh annually, I teach an undergraduate course in in gun violence.
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And we we spend a lot of time for reasons that I mentioned at the outset, that it's it accounts for more of the gun deaths in this country.
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But the rise of suicides with guns among women is rising across the age span.
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I think that there are just more guns out there.
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Women have more access to guns.
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They may live in states where laws are very lax, and wherever laws are lax, the likelihood of a gun in the home rises.
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Women are feeling, you know, they've been, they've been, they've been targeted by by gun companies.
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Gun manufacturers are trying to sell guns to women, trying to get them to buy guns for because of fear.
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You know, I a lecture that I give in my class is the marketing of firearms from The early, you know, the 1900s to the present, and you see a common theme, which is trying to instill fear in women.
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And the best way to deal with that is by owning a gun.
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And guns, you know, the pink revolvers, you know, you probably have heard of that.
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So there are various attempts to market uh guns, firearms to women and to older adults as well.
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I mean, there have been guns, we are awash in firearms in this country.
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And it the fact remains that in areas and in households with guns, the odds of dying of suicide, homicide, or accidental death rises exponentially.
00:22:40.720 --> 00:22:42.960
And so that's that's a big problem.
00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:48.400
You know, I know you're you're interested in asking about the uh red flag laws.
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:55.759
Um and and red flag laws are can work, and they work in some places, not all states.
00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:15.200
We did publish the a piece not too long ago in one of the JAMA journals, and we did show that at least in the states we studied, there was, they seem to be uh work rather effectively, but many states have not adopted those laws because it interferes with their Second Amendment rights.
00:23:15.519 --> 00:23:17.279
So it's got caught up with that.
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:32.160
So you may recall there was an incident in in Maine uh some about a year, two years ago or so, and we we found out that about these yellow flag laws, which are kind of a watered-down version, a red flag laws.
00:23:32.480 --> 00:23:34.160
So that's the problem.
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:37.359
We we are we aren't of one mind in this country.
00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:40.319
We are 50 different uh minds.
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:47.920
And a gun's, you know, the the problem with gun suicide is that the guns are easily available.
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.319
And people don't lock their door, lock up their guns.
00:23:52.400 --> 00:24:00.960
You know, we many teens who take their lives with guns often get those guns from their parents, and those guns were unlocked, loaded, and ready to use.
00:24:01.279 --> 00:24:05.839
And that's where most of how most guns are, few of them are locked up.
00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:19.200
So lots of guns, women are having more access to them, feeling more comfortable, and if they've served in the military, this is another thing, which is I recently looked at some data published by the VA.
00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:26.400
And the proportion of suicides involving guns among women is growing at a faster pace than among male veterans.
00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:26.960
Wow.
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:31.119
So, you know, it is almost like another epidemic.
00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:35.440
And that is a point that I try to stress when we talk about suicide.
00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:37.599
Suicide isn't just one epidemic.
00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:40.319
It's a whole, it's these are different epidemics.
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:44.160
And the problem, it's like, you know, it reminds me of cancer.
00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:47.599
Cancer is what, two, three hundred different diseases, right?
00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:53.599
Well, in a sense, suicide isn't just one entity, it's it's numerous entities.
00:24:53.759 --> 00:24:59.119
The gun suicide problem, the veteran suicide problem, the teen suicide, the older adult suicide.
00:24:59.279 --> 00:25:00.240
It goes on and on.
00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:09.359
And so we need to be very careful in assuming that what works has worked in the past overall will work again.
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:19.279
But suicide is not, you know, believe it or not, the rate of suicide has been going up or has remained relatively flat for the last 60 years.
00:25:19.599 --> 00:25:33.119
So in spite of advances in therapy, yeah, kind of stuff that you might do, or psychopharmacology, et cetera, et cetera, not much has changed.
00:25:33.759 --> 00:25:36.880
That's that's baffling to me in a sense.
00:25:37.039 --> 00:25:49.440
It really is, because you would think because of the advancement, right, of these of studies, the advancement of therapy, all these evidence-based practices, all these Columbia suicide risk assessments.
00:25:49.680 --> 00:26:01.440
But one of the things that I'm hearing from you is the people that are completing the act of suicide are the people that aren't necessarily involved in much of this.
00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:03.279
Is that fair to say?
00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:05.119
Especially especially the men.
00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:06.079
Especially the men.
00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:16.720
Women are more likely to, you know, women are far more likely to engage in non-fatal suicidal or have suicidal ideation.
00:26:16.960 --> 00:26:35.920
So there could be opportunities and are more likely to, and and I I think you might even be interested in the question of, well, do we really know if how what the prevalence of depression or a negative affect or you know psychological factors that may contribute to suicide among men?
00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:40.240
You know, we I think we've had mismeasured mental health status among men.
00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:55.839
We we don't know, many of us don't, you know, you probably see few male patients or, you know, and and so we don't, we may have a just a misunderstanding of some of the mental health risk factors involved in suicide among men.
00:26:56.079 --> 00:26:58.400
So they're they're disadvantaged by that.
00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:13.440
And I think that training is could is an important part of it, an investment we spent nationally on preventing suicide, you know, just pittons really, and it's been cut even under the current administration.
00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:18.880
There's been kind of a disinvestment in suicide prevention activities.
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:27.200
And the crisis line is, you know, they they there was called by the federal by the Trump administration to defund that.
00:27:27.599 --> 00:27:35.839
So it's, you know, we we can't even, there's lack of consensus over time as to what to do and how to do it.
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:38.559
Thanks to various organizations.
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:57.279
I think it's still a topic of interest to legislators, policymakers, and American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Association of Suicidology, and various other organizations that have been at the forefront of trying to advocate for increased funding and increased training.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:20.240
Yeah, what I'm curious, what frustrates you kind of the most, right, when it comes to laws, when it comes to people trying to implement suicide prevention strategies, when it comes to all of these, all of the stuff that's going on, that it seems like it's not, at least in terms of the numbers, making that much of a difference.
00:28:21.279 --> 00:28:30.640
What's is there anything in particular that you are hoping to see or that you would like to see that's just that you're not seeing happen?
00:28:31.119 --> 00:29:01.279
Given the numbers involved in gun-related suicides, fortunately with gun suicides, we we have if somebody dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, it's it's probably far easier to determine that that was indeed a suicide, uh unlike other forms of suicide, poisoning or you know, others, drowning, a lot of other behaviors that that we simply didn't look like suicide, but were classified as something else or misclassified as non-suicide.
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:05.759
So I would just take the gun-related suicides.
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:16.720
Now we know a lot about what can contribute to a lower rate of gun-related suicides.
00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:23.920
Let me let me just point out that in California, there's the Gifford Law Center, Gabby Gifford.
00:29:24.079 --> 00:29:33.119
Remember her, she was uh she a very strong advocate for gun control laws, uh, gun control legislation.
00:29:33.279 --> 00:29:40.720
There's something called the Gifford Law Center that tracks and grades states on their gun gun control laws.
00:29:41.119 --> 00:29:58.400
And it's a fact that in states that get the highest ratings for being the uh having the best legislation to prevent policies that really minimize people's access, those are states that have far fewer gun-related suicides.
00:29:58.880 --> 00:30:09.440
And what's important too is that while the suicide rate may not be that different, but the proportion of suicides involving guns is lower.
00:30:09.680 --> 00:30:10.880
Why is that important?
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:30.160
It's important because once a gun is present and a person who's suicidal, and to that mix I would add acutely intoxicated, which is another area that I've studied, because there's a triangular relationship between guns, suicide, and alcohol.
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:38.880
You know, once that gun is present, the window of opportunity is to rescue is near is shut tight.
00:30:39.279 --> 00:30:41.759
So we don't have the methodology.
00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:44.960
We simply don't know how to deal with cases.
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:47.759
Those are not people calling up a crisis line.
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:50.640
You know, those are not people calling for help.
00:30:50.880 --> 00:30:55.920
They are, you know, at that end stage of their crisis, whatever it is.
00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:02.720
It could be, you know, when we were looking at veterans, it could have been a relationship problem, it could have been, you know, financial problem.
00:31:02.960 --> 00:31:08.480
It was just, it was just they were at on the just about to go over the edge.
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:14.720
And they had they had access to a gun, they knew how to use the gun and use the gun.
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:28.960
So my point is that we could probably do a lot more if we were serious about understanding that connection between gun availability and suicides by gun.
00:31:29.279 --> 00:31:37.759
Unfortunately, you know, it always meets up against the uh uh clashes with Second Amendment rights.
00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:40.799
And that's one of the problems we have in this country.
00:31:41.039 --> 00:31:54.559
You know how in California we adopt strict laws and then it goes, it's challenged, it goes through the courts, they shop for the right court, right judges, and they rule against the state and they overturn.
00:31:54.799 --> 00:32:00.559
So, you know, there was an interesting back in some decades ago, Washington, D.C.
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:05.119
had some of the strictest laws regarding owning handguns.
00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:09.440
Most, by the way, most suicides involve handguns.
00:32:09.759 --> 00:32:10.400
Yeah.
00:32:10.640 --> 00:32:15.519
We could just focus on, you know, what I'm getting at is we we know what to focus on.
00:32:15.680 --> 00:32:21.519
And so the courts intervened and the Supreme Court intervened and basically overruled and basically undid the law.
00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:26.960
And what happened was gun, gun-related suicides went up again.
00:32:27.200 --> 00:32:29.359
So there's no question about that.
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:31.599
Laws can work quite well.
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:46.079
I don't know from a therapeutic, in a therapeutic setting, there are probably cases where, you know, there's somebody who's at risk who owns a gun, and we, you know, that's what some of the red flag laws are for.
00:32:46.480 --> 00:32:54.400
You know, lots of men and now women basically use that gun to take their lives.
00:32:55.440 --> 00:33:05.519
We study these lots of older men who were basically debilitated, isolated, lonely, frail.
00:33:06.720 --> 00:33:12.720
They were probably better off dead, in their opinion, and took their lives.
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:16.960
I often some years ago actually, I was asked this question.
00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:20.799
I said, you know, it's uh society-assisted suicide.
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:24.799
You know, we have very lax laws, let people to own guns.
00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:39.359
It's not what I would call death with dignity, which is, you know, physician-assisted suicide, but it is a form of the individual taking control over their lives.
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:44.799
And I know this might seem odd, but it's a it's a way for the that person to take control over their lives.
00:33:44.960 --> 00:33:51.359
And once they see themselves as as, you know, death is the best option for them, they'll take their lives.
00:33:51.519 --> 00:33:54.640
So it's it's it's complicated by that too.
00:33:55.039 --> 00:34:10.000
And you could see opportunities perhaps with older men who might have been, who might have benefited from some type of mental health intervention earlier, you know, who were beginning to face, you know, chronic health problems.
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:15.920
And before they reach that stage in their life where things look pretty grim.
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:16.719
Yeah.
00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:17.199
Yeah.
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:27.760
And just to kind of summarize what you're saying, and I really like all these pieces that you've put in in terms of suicide, you know, it's definitely not.
00:34:27.920 --> 00:34:35.039
I mean, I think a lot of people out there in the public say, you know, it's a it's a mental health issue, but it's so much more than that.
00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:47.440
It's a public health issue because it involves relationships, economics, physical health, substance abuse, firearm access, and community conditions is what I'm hearing from you.
00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:48.239
Absolutely.
00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:49.599
You're it's spun on.
00:34:49.840 --> 00:34:59.840
It is it is a problem that is, there's so many different moving parts to it, so many dimensions at many different levels.
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:22.400
And it's it's the failure to appreciate the complexity of the problem, that it isn't just a matter of turning switches on and off and intervening with, you know, whatever standard approach to mental health you're using or the reliance on psychotropic drugs, it is far more than that.
00:35:22.639 --> 00:35:24.480
Some people might benefit from that.
00:35:24.639 --> 00:35:34.800
But when you're looking at population levels, I'm not seeing much out there that's made much of a dent, except for a reduction guns.
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:38.320
And let me just add a quick point here.
00:35:38.639 --> 00:35:46.159
Some years ago, I was invited to to the American Association for Suicidology annual conference.
00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:55.360
And it was it was at a time when there had been just a rather interesting reduction in suicides in the US.
00:35:55.840 --> 00:36:05.360
And so the question was can we bring people from different disciplines to the stage and present their theories as to why that happened?
00:36:05.599 --> 00:36:14.480
And, you know, some of the therapists argued that, you know, was having, you know, they more patients had access to care.
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:26.000
And then it was my turn, and I kind of looked at gun suicides, which still accounts for the majority, the majority of suicides that are gun related.
00:36:26.480 --> 00:36:37.920
And there was in that period that we were examining, lo and behold, based on a lot of other data, a reduction in in ownership of guns.
00:36:38.559 --> 00:36:56.239
So it was now it it's it's correlational, yeah, but I was convinced, at least, that there was something there, and that we need to talk about guns, suicide, guns in the context of suicide prevention.
00:36:56.480 --> 00:37:02.639
We we can't continue treating it exclusively as a mental health crisis.
00:37:02.960 --> 00:37:03.599
Yeah.
00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:07.519
Yeah, because again, it's it's so much more than that.
00:37:07.760 --> 00:37:11.199
And I also, you know, think it's important.
00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:33.440
I want to, I'm curious to talk a little bit more if you have more information about the correlation of alcohol use or substance abuse as well, too, because I I know that when I was doing crisis work, most of the completed suicides that I saw, it was a combination of alcohol use and firearm.
00:37:33.599 --> 00:37:36.159
Actually, that was, you know, that was at the residence.
00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:41.760
So it's it's going along exactly kind of with what you with what you were saying in terms of what I noticed.
00:37:42.719 --> 00:37:52.400
So are there any other kind of numbers you have, like how the the correlation with alcohol substance use and suicide as well, too?
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:53.920
Well, it's important.
00:37:54.239 --> 00:38:09.599
Yeah, that you know, it understanding the role of alcohol, because as you as you observe and as we observed, and based on look based on large, you know, these large data sets, you know, it was data-driven research from the CDC.
00:38:10.079 --> 00:38:18.559
I spent years looking at the national violent death reporting system, which is a large database that goes back to 2003 or so.
00:38:18.800 --> 00:38:28.880
All states participate, and there's toxicology data in so we know based on the post-mortem testing whether there was alcohol on board or not.
00:38:29.039 --> 00:38:35.840
So that's where some of those, well, lots of those studies that I did with colleagues around the country and beyond.
00:38:35.920 --> 00:38:38.880
I've worked with some Canadian researchers as well.
00:38:39.119 --> 00:38:48.320
And what we found was that indeed there is this strong correlation between alcohol use, acute alcohol use.
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:54.400
So, in other words, we're talking about BAC levels exceeding the legal limit.
00:38:54.559 --> 00:38:57.599
We're not talking about, you know, just the presence of alcohol.
00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:03.599
We're talking about alcohol levels four times, maybe eight times the legal limit, very high.
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:07.679
And so the question, the next question is is why?
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:08.239
Okay.
00:39:08.880 --> 00:39:11.920
So there have been many ideas about that.
00:39:12.320 --> 00:39:22.800
One might say it's a form of behavioral disinhibition, then in some way it's the liquid courage, you know, is to use the popular term.
00:39:23.119 --> 00:39:25.119
I think that that plays some role.
00:39:25.440 --> 00:39:36.960
There are those who are thinking, well, if we if we I have colleagues, I brought together my team basically, there were suicide researchers and there were alcohol researchers.
00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:41.920
So it was very interesting to bring together people who might see things differently.
00:39:42.000 --> 00:40:05.440
And I and the why I'm bringing that up is because my alcohol research colleagues would believe that, you know, just by reducing people's access, that is, higher taxes, when stores can stay open, how long it can stay open, you know, and so, you know, I was trying to piece together something that combined the two.
00:40:05.599 --> 00:40:10.719
And and we did find, for instance, that that off-premise and on-premise.
00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:12.880
On-premise means going to a bar and drinking.
00:40:13.039 --> 00:40:15.280
Off-premise means buying and taking it home.
00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:22.320
Off-premise was, you know, here's another, you know, we're always looking for variables that can be manipulated to reduce.
00:40:22.639 --> 00:40:31.280
Off-premise based net based on national data was was more closely associated with with suicidal attempts, suicide deaths.
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:31.760
Okay.
00:40:32.480 --> 00:40:35.360
And that was was that picture was very clear.
00:40:35.679 --> 00:40:52.559
But there's no question about it, you know, uh, somebody who doesn't have that risk profile that I talked about before, who's suddenly faced with a crisis, often with the alcohol, short circuits that process and winds up taking their life.
00:40:52.719 --> 00:40:58.079
This has happened, I've based on data that we've analyzed, we've seen this happen over and over again.
00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:01.920
So alcohol is very much part of the gun suicide.
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:09.360
Now, you might say, well, what about people who have an alcohol-related problem dependence or and there is something to that too.
00:41:09.440 --> 00:41:19.599
I I have some other colleagues who have basically studied the role of alcohol in non-fatal suicidality, uh, suicidal behavior.
00:41:19.760 --> 00:41:24.719
And clearly they show that there is a connection, there is a there is a relationship.
00:41:24.960 --> 00:41:31.840
Most of my work, in fact, practically all of my work has focused on those who have died by suicide.
00:41:32.159 --> 00:41:37.920
We have post-mortem data, good postmortem data, not psychological autopsies.
00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:41.440
It it goes far beyond the traditional psychological autopsies.
00:41:41.599 --> 00:41:45.840
These are cover everyone who's died by suicide as far as we know.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:51.840
And we have we have their toxicology data for most cases.
00:41:52.239 --> 00:41:54.960
And then we also have some drug-related.
00:41:55.360 --> 00:42:05.199
Unfortunately, the drug, uh, the non-alcohol drug data that we have, the toxicology is a little bit, it's not as good as the alcohol.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:15.039
But based on those data, based on people who've died by suicide, there's just no question in my mind that alcohol plays some role, especially in gun-related suicides.
00:42:16.239 --> 00:42:20.639
And but it also plays some role in non-in just in suicide in general.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:28.000
And you might have come across some of the work that we did on economic downturn and suicides at alcohol.
00:42:28.079 --> 00:42:38.239
And we did see, for instance, that the Great Recession that we experienced back in 2008-2009, really, you know, severe economic downturn.
00:42:38.480 --> 00:42:42.960
We did see a rise in alcohol involvement and suicide.
00:42:43.199 --> 00:43:00.320
So it might have something to do with, you know, the financial strain at the time, but we saw that there was a rise in alcohol-linked suicides, not gun, gun, not gun specific among men, and a little bit later for women.
00:43:00.719 --> 00:43:01.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:02.719
Fascinating.
00:43:03.039 --> 00:43:18.320
With all of the research that you do, and I I think some of the newer research is, I know there's a lot with the, of course, with alcohol correlation, but as well too with now women using firearms at a more higher rate.
00:43:18.639 --> 00:43:25.440
What's maybe some newer research that's been done or that you've done that's kind of surprised you the most, if anything?
00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:30.400
Has there been anything that's that's surprised you in your recent research?
00:43:30.800 --> 00:43:37.199
Well, I think what what surprised me is the rise of gun suicides among women.
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:41.679
That that we don't we don't have a full understanding of that.
00:43:42.159 --> 00:43:44.400
We suspect that it's rising.
00:43:44.639 --> 00:43:46.800
It's also rising among young people, too.
00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:59.760
We saw that in a paper we did a few years ago, we found that among black youth, young adults, that the raw there was also a very significant statistically speaking, rise.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:02.960
In the rate of gun involvement in suicides.
00:44:03.199 --> 00:44:06.719
So I think across the board, it's rising.
00:44:06.880 --> 00:44:11.119
That's where we stand out in the Western world, right?
00:44:11.679 --> 00:44:19.039
Our rate of suicide is no, is falls right in the middle of, you know, when you rank countries according to their suicide.
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:26.000
But what distinguishes us from any other countries is the role, our our guns, gun involvement.
00:44:26.559 --> 00:44:36.480
And guns, gun, you know, when guns are involved, as I I've said a couple of times, it's it's just almost hard to prevent, hard to intervene.
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:39.519
You know, what you know, there's just nothing there to do.
00:44:39.679 --> 00:44:42.320
I mean, there's no there's no call for help.
00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:52.000
And so that what's has surprised me perhaps the most is one, the fact that gun suicides are on the rise across the board.
00:44:52.239 --> 00:44:59.360
The other thing I want to point out is that homicides are declining while gun suit while gun suicides are rising.
00:44:59.679 --> 00:45:00.719
So interesting.
00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:01.280
Yeah.
00:45:01.519 --> 00:45:08.159
So the problem today, and and yet we haven't, you know, the national conversation about this is just not there.
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:21.679
And again, keep in mind that we're talking about a constitutionally issue, a constitutional issue that guarantees the right to possess a firearm.
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:23.599
And that's one of the problems.
00:45:23.920 --> 00:45:30.639
So I'm hoping that we might find be more creative in terms of getting around that.
00:45:30.960 --> 00:45:44.000
But every time a new piece of uh a new policy is adopted, it's it's almost immediately, immediately challenged in the courts by the gun rights folks.
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:55.840
And I I I mentioned my course, my gun violence course, an undergraduate course, an upper division undergraduate course, which is students just really love the class.
00:45:56.000 --> 00:46:01.599
And I I've also supervised a number of uh undergraduate honors thesis in the area.
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:05.679
They they like the course so much that they go on to propose and project.
00:46:05.920 --> 00:46:18.719
And one of the things I do in my class is that, you know, I try to invite, and I I not try, I've invited in and they've come somebody who represents the gun rights organizations.
00:46:18.960 --> 00:46:26.159
So I often have somebody from the the uh Gun Owners of America uh representative come to class.
00:46:26.239 --> 00:46:41.599
It and this is a Second Amendment organization through and through, but it's important to understand, and one of the things I tried to do since I think gun suicides is guns involvement in suicide is so essential, understanding what to do about it.
00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:51.360
So I tried to get my students to try to understand from the other side's perspective how to deal with a gun issue, how to get around the stalemate.
00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:52.079
Yeah.
00:46:52.320 --> 00:46:53.119
The stalemate.
00:46:53.599 --> 00:46:59.679
No, I I think that's amazing that you you're willing to bring in person kind of on the other side of the fence in there.
00:46:59.760 --> 00:47:04.239
And that's a that's how a true, you know, intellectual environment should be, right?
00:47:04.400 --> 00:47:04.639
Exactly.
00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:05.599
Exactly.
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:09.679
Students, students respond, I have responded so well to that.
00:47:09.840 --> 00:47:23.679
You know, I I hesitated when I first started doing it, thinking they're going to go after me, they're going to report me to the authorities as somebody who is, you know, is being it's it's blasphemous to bring in the opposition.
00:47:23.840 --> 00:47:30.079
But it's the response has been, I mean, I've been so pleased with how students have responded to that.
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:36.639
They are respectful of that person and really trying to understand how, what, what makes that person tick.
00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:38.639
You know, what is it, what is it?
00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:50.480
And I I truly believe that we are not going to be able to deal and be more creative and more effective in preventing gun suicides unless we have an understanding of what is the opposition?
00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:56.639
Why are they so adamant about opposing you know gun restrictions?
00:47:56.960 --> 00:47:57.599
Yeah.
00:47:58.320 --> 00:48:06.960
Is there is there a question about suicide that still keeps you intellectually or or emotionally kind of awake at night?
00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:23.039
You know, that's well, I I I think one of the questions that I often ask myself is I'm surprised to hear, and I've come to this realization that even I have been impacted by suicide.
00:48:23.119 --> 00:48:36.400
Not not personally, but I can tell you that I've had neighbor, family, university, colleagues, people that I've known, worked with directly, uh, and some people indirectly.
00:48:36.800 --> 00:48:39.360
How common suicide is.
00:48:40.159 --> 00:48:54.000
So that's perhaps one of the things that keeps me up late at night is how common the problem is and how little we've done to reduce and mitigate this, mitigate the problem.
00:48:54.239 --> 00:48:54.719
Yeah.
00:48:55.039 --> 00:49:05.360
I think we sometimes we I'm troubled by the fact that we're we're bent on trying to find the needle in the haystack, you know, the metaphor of the needle in the hay.
00:49:05.599 --> 00:49:10.480
And we're trying, we we're almost obsessed with finding that needle in the haystack.
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:17.679
And I I think it's it's it's the time has come to begin looking at this in much wider terms.
00:49:17.840 --> 00:49:31.920
You know, these are societal problems, not only psychiatric problems, but they are problems that that affect a lot of people, you know, for every suicide death, you know, scores of other people are impacted by that.
00:49:32.320 --> 00:49:50.239
And so I I what keeps me up at times, and I find this very challenging, is you know, we we we haven't made much headway in terms of having a more serious impact on reducing the incidence of suicidality.
00:49:50.880 --> 00:49:54.960
Last last question before we get ready to to close it up.
00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:04.559
Do you think the appropriate disciplines or the appropriate professions have all kind of gotten together at the same table, right?
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:08.000
Because we've identified, you know, this isn't just a mental health issue.
00:50:08.159 --> 00:50:09.199
It's it's bigger than that.
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:10.559
There's so much more.
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:31.519
So in your mind, if they haven't already, who are all the people that you'd like to see kind of sit at the table together doing research, asking questions, and trying to come up with some type of you know that that's that's an interesting question you're asking because it ties into something.
00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:40.960
In January, I'm going off to Canada on the Canadian Fulbright program has has awarded me the uh Fulbright Chair in Mental Health.
00:50:41.039 --> 00:50:45.119
So it's it's it's an award, it's a prestigious award.
00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:51.039
And I'm going to be going to the University of Victoria in British Columbia, perhaps you know the areas.
00:50:51.760 --> 00:50:59.119
And I'll be there for the winter and part of the spring, working at the universities, developing, working on a project.
00:50:59.280 --> 00:51:08.079
My role is more of a facilitator, but working on a transdisciplinary approach to mental health research and treatment.
00:51:08.719 --> 00:51:18.639
So I will be touching in, and I think this kind of evolves out of my thinking that perhaps we don't have the right players at the table.
00:51:18.800 --> 00:51:29.920
And we don't not only not only do we don't have the right players, but we don't have them interacting in such a way that out of that interaction, something more substantive will come up come out.
00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:33.119
And by that I mean more of a transdisciplinary.
00:51:33.280 --> 00:51:40.000
And by transdisciplinary, I know I don't want to get into the weeds about this, but it basically is different from interdisciplinary.
00:51:40.159 --> 00:51:46.559
It means getting people from different disciplines to work together where they transcend their own disciplinary boundaries.
00:51:46.719 --> 00:51:53.360
In other words, they understand what the other person comes from, a very disciplin, different discipline.
00:51:53.599 --> 00:52:06.719
And I think we need to come to a table and acknowledge that, you know, as as you know, they were talking in a different context, but it's it's the idea of you know recognizing that you know we're ignorant, but we're not stupid, those people sitting around the table.
00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:07.599
You know what I mean?
00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:08.079
Yeah.
00:52:08.239 --> 00:52:17.039
And and once you once you come to terms with that, then we can begin thinking about transcending, you know, these silos that we often come from.
00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:18.800
And that's one of the problems.
00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:24.559
This is more of a you know, developing new knowledge, but we're we're stuck in silos.
00:52:24.719 --> 00:52:27.360
Sometimes we're in silos within silos.
00:52:27.679 --> 00:52:28.000
Yes.
00:52:28.239 --> 00:52:33.199
And yes, we we don't we don't reach out beyond those silos.
00:52:33.440 --> 00:52:38.320
We are afraid to talk about talk to others in their own language.
00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:52.000
And so that's really we need in a sense, we need a new model of team science to begin to do a better job of understanding and and hopefully preventing suicides.
00:52:52.480 --> 00:52:54.400
Yeah, that would be phenomenal.
00:52:54.559 --> 00:52:55.519
That would be phenomenal.
00:52:55.679 --> 00:52:58.320
And congratulations on your award.
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:00.480
That's amazing, very well deserved.
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:02.079
So congratulations.
00:53:02.800 --> 00:53:07.199
And real quick before we wrap up, I always do this with everybody I talk to.
00:53:07.440 --> 00:53:08.960
I have four questions.
00:53:09.039 --> 00:53:11.199
It's just a one-sentence response.
00:53:11.519 --> 00:53:16.480
So you just give it a one-sentence response and then we'll we'll wrap up.
00:53:16.800 --> 00:53:17.119
Okay.
00:53:18.079 --> 00:53:31.119
If someone listening feels powerless right now, like over their situation or what's happening, and they're in a they're in a not good place, what would you say to them if someone feels powerless right now?
00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:37.199
Reach out to the person's closest to you, your your cloth, your your a friend, a family member.
00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:38.800
That's what I would do.
00:53:39.199 --> 00:53:39.840
Nice.
00:53:40.480 --> 00:53:40.880
All right.
00:53:41.119 --> 00:53:46.079
What's one thing an everyday person can do to make a real impact?
00:53:46.480 --> 00:53:48.960
I I just think about the fate of many people.
00:53:49.119 --> 00:54:03.840
We live in a city with a high rate of homelessness, trying to put ourselves in that person situation and understand or try to understand what life might be like living in a tent on Santa Monica Boulevard, for instance.
00:54:04.480 --> 00:54:15.119
That's that's what I would do is is is transcend yourself, look beyond your immediate range of concerns, and put yourself in that situation to see what it's like.
00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:15.920
Wow.
00:54:16.159 --> 00:54:16.480
Okay.
00:54:18.239 --> 00:54:18.639
All right.
00:54:18.719 --> 00:54:22.480
We've all maybe been at some point in our lives through different pain, right?
00:54:22.639 --> 00:54:25.840
Different trauma or or just things that have happened, life.
00:54:26.079 --> 00:54:31.440
Who did you become because maybe some of the pain that you've lived through in the past?
00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:38.960
Well, I I think it's the profession I chose.
00:54:39.679 --> 00:54:43.360
It's the the the type of problems that I study.
00:54:43.760 --> 00:54:57.039
I I we haven't talked about it, but one of the biggest issues for me is are these gross inequalities in society that often contribute to health issues, mental health.
00:54:57.199 --> 00:55:01.440
That's that's something I I didn't say this, but I grew up in Guatemala.
00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:05.679
And I I was exposed to you know just extreme poverty there.
00:55:05.920 --> 00:55:06.239
Wow.
00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:09.760
And so I I carry that from childhood on.
00:55:10.000 --> 00:55:19.599
As a child, I could never understand why I was privileged and somebody who was also another child of the same age was not.
00:55:20.159 --> 00:55:22.400
I'm still troubled by that.
00:55:22.559 --> 00:55:29.360
And that's that's left marks on me that that have shaped, framed how I see things today.
00:55:29.679 --> 00:55:30.719
Yeah, that's beautiful.
00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:32.320
Thank you for sharing that.
00:55:33.039 --> 00:55:34.639
All right, last question.
00:55:34.880 --> 00:55:37.360
What do you want your legacy to be?
00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:41.199
And not necessarily your career, but your soul's work.
00:55:43.519 --> 00:55:50.559
Well, I think it'll have to be more than just publishing scholarly papers.
00:55:51.039 --> 00:55:56.320
It is, I'd like to, you know, influence some big legislation.
00:55:56.480 --> 00:56:00.320
You know, and I I've had opportunities to testify in Capitol Hill.
00:56:00.559 --> 00:56:06.800
I've I've testified on veterans' issues, I've and I've also testified before other legislative bodies.
00:56:07.039 --> 00:56:26.400
I hope to continue that, and I hope that that will be my legacy, not whether I published and the number of citations I have, but the true impact that that's had on improving, you know, the life of people who, for reasons that we don't understand, have to live on the street in Los Angeles.
00:56:27.519 --> 00:56:28.159
Yeah.
00:56:28.639 --> 00:56:29.039
Yeah.
00:56:29.199 --> 00:56:29.920
Well, Dr.
00:56:30.079 --> 00:56:33.599
Kaplan, I I can't thank you enough again for being here.
00:56:33.840 --> 00:56:42.480
And again, one thing I really enjoy about this is you not only see somebody through their profession, but you see their humanity as well, too.
00:56:42.800 --> 00:56:47.519
And just seeing the the humanity that you have is is really amazing.
00:56:47.760 --> 00:56:54.880
And of course, your contribution to society and to students, lives, everything, just fascinating.
00:56:55.039 --> 00:56:56.320
So again, thank you.
00:56:56.400 --> 00:57:00.320
And maybe sometime down the road we can connect again.
00:57:01.119 --> 00:57:02.719
Glad to do that, and thank you so much.
00:57:02.800 --> 00:57:06.159
It was a great, great opportunity to share some thoughts with you.
00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:08.559
And you had excellent questions.
00:57:08.880 --> 00:57:09.280
All right.
00:57:09.360 --> 00:57:09.920
Well, thank you.
00:57:10.320 --> 00:57:12.079
You could continue for another hour or so.
00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:13.920
Yes, absolutely.
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:18.159
So thank you everybody for listening to another episode of Finding Your Voice.