Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Gifted Child Quarterly
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Cross, T. L.
Right arrow Articles by Ball, P. B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A Psychological Autopsy of the Suicide of an Academically Gifted Student: Researchers' and Parents' Perspectives

Tracy L. Cross

Ball State University

Karyn Gust-Brey

Ethan Allen School

P. Bonny Ball

Vancouver, Canada

This study uses the methods and procedures of psychological autopsy to portray the life of an academically gifted college student who completed suicide. The study is unique in that it follows the subject across his 21 years of life, highlighting relevant milestones and significant stages and events. A comprehensive view of the life and death of a gifted student is offered through both researchers' and parents' perspectives, along with multiple theoretical explanations, including a developmental explanation.

This psychological autopsy yielded three sets of findings: those that reflected exclusively on the subject's life, those that compare his life with 3 previous psychological autopsies conducted, and those that reflect the parents' observations and experiences of his life. Two important findings of this study include a depiction of the psychological makeup of a subject in interaction with his environment and the fact that many of the factors contributing to suicidal behavior identified for the general population of adolescents and young adults existed in this case, as well. Consequently, as Cross, Cook, and Dixon (1996) fund, certain types of aberrant behavior, belief systems, or both should not be considered a typical part of being a gifted person; they should be recognized as potential indicators of suicidal behavior.

Gifted Child Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4, 247-264 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/001698620204600402
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Gifted Child QuarterlyHome page
T. L. Cross, J. C. Cassady, and K. A. Miller
Suicide Ideation and Personality Characteristics Among Gifted Adolescents
Gifted Child Quarterly, October 1, 2006; 50(4): 295 - 306.
[Abstract] [PDF]