Are suicidal thoughts and depression increasing or decreasing among college students? What life circumstances are the most critical to explore with depressed or suicidal college students? This article focuses on the rate of self-assessed depression and suicide among college students and examines contributing factors and help-seeking behavior. Results of our study indicated that 53% of the sample stated that they experienced depression since beginning college, with 9% reporting that they had considered committing suicide since beginning college. Suggestions for college mental health practitioners related to programming, prevention, and psychoeducation are described.Psychologists practicing on college campuses today are often perplexed as to the best way to deal with suicidal college students. This is because suicide among college and university students is a problem of complex dimensions that impacts many people: clients, survivors, and psychologists alike. Over the years, various researchers have examined college student suicide from several perspectives. For example, researchers have examined the causes of suicide among college students and have identified a variety of causes, including social problems (e.g., Bernard & Bernard, 1982), hopelessness (Schwartz & Whitaker, 1990;Westefeld, Whitchard, & Range, 1990), inadequate reasons for living (Westefeld, Cardin, & Deaton, 1992), academic problems (Bernard & Bernard, 1982; SUSAN R. FURR received her PhD in counseling psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She currently is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling, Special Education, and Child Development at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research interests include college student development and counselor education. JOHN S. WESTEFELD received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently is an associate professor in counseling psychology at the University of Iowa. He also is a diplomate in counseling psychology. His research interests include college student suicide, severe weather phobia, and men's health. GAVE N. MCCONNELL received her MA in counseling from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She is director of student life at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and a doctoral student at North Carolina State University. Her research interests include the matriculation of community college students to the university setting. J. MARSHALL JENKINS received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is director of the counseling center at Berry College. His research interests include the interaction between psychotherapy and spirituality.

The current study assessed psychotherapy clients' beliefs about the appropriateness of discussing religious and spiritual concerns in counseling, clients' preferences for such discussion, and identified explanatory variables for these beliefs and preferences. These variables were assessed using the Client Attitudes toward Spirituality in Therapy survey; the Index of Spiritual Experiences (

Professional psychologists who work with gay men have noted that traditional masculine ideals play a prominent role in the gay community whereby some endorse these traditional ideals and stigmatize effeminate behavior by other gay men. One hypothesis is that this behavior reflects negative feelings about being gay. This article examined this hypothesis by reporting the results of an online survey of 622 self-identified gay men. Participants completed the Gender Role Conflict Scale, Lesbian and Gay Identity Scale, the Social Desirability Scale, and questions related to the importance of masculinity. Results showed that most participants valued the public appearance of masculinity; and they ideally wished to be more masculine than they felt they were (Cohen's d = 0.42). A multiple regression analysis showed that the degree to which they valued masculinity and were concerned with violating masculine ideals was positively related with negative feelings about being gay (Cohen's f 2 = .67). These findings highlight the importance of exploring the role that masculine ideals play in gay client's lives given that negative feelings about oneself can adversely affect psychological well-being.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Francisco "Cisco" J. Sánchez, Department of Human Genetics, 695 Charles Young Dr. S #5524, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7088. Electronic mail may be sent to fjsanchez@mednet.ucla.edu. Francisco J. Sánchez received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Iowa in 2005. He is currently a psychology research fellow in the Center for Gender-Based Biology and the Department of Human Genetics at the UCLA School of Medicine. His major research interest is the biopsychology of sexual orientation and gender identity. John S. Westefeld received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 1978. He is currently a professor in counseling psychology at the University of Iowa. His major research interest is suicide. William Ming Liu received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Maryland in 2000. He is currently the program director of the University of Iowa's Counseling Psychology Program. His research interests are men's issues, social class and poverty, and multicultural competency. Eric Vilain received his PhD in genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1994 and his MD from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in 1995. He is a professor in the departments of Human Genetics, Pediatrics, and Urology; he is the Chief of Medical Genetics; and he is the Director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at the UCLA School of Medicine. His research interests include the genetic bases of sex determination, sex differences in the brain, and the development of gender identity and sexual orientation. This article resulted from a doctoral dissertation project conducted by F. J. Sánchez under the supervision of J. S. Westefeld. This study was supported by the Malyon-Smith Scholarship Fund presented by Division 44 and the Gamma ...

Two studies were carried out in an effort to develop and evaluate an instrument designed to assess suicidal risk in college students. Study 1 describes the development of the College Student Reasons for Living Inventory (CSRLI), an instrument that measures the extent to which college students place importance on various reasons for living even when contemplating suicide. The impetus for the current study was provided by Linehan et al., who in 1983 developed the Reasons for Living Inventory for use with adults. In the current study college students generated a series of 84 “reasons for living” items, which were reduced through factor analysis to a final inventory of 46 items. Six factors were extracted as follows: Survival and Coping Beliefs, College and Future‐Related Concerns, Moral Objections, Responsibility to Friends and Family, Fear of Suicide, and Fear of Social Disapproval. Five of these factors reflect the same basic themes contained in the Linehan et al. (1983) study. The sixth factor (College and Future‐Related Concerns) appears to be unique to college students. Linehan et al.'s Child‐Related Concerns factor expectedly did not appear in this college sample. In Study 2 initial evaluation of the CSRLI was carried out through the use of correlational, confirmatory factor, and discriminant analyses. Results indicate that the CSRLI holds promise as an instrument to predict suicidal risk among college students.

The issue of suicide, including prevention, intervention, and postvention, continues to be a problem on college campuses. For this study, data concerning a variety of issues related to college student suicide were collected from 1,865 students at four different universities. Incidence, risk factors, and potential solutions are described, as well as implications for mental health professionals in university settings.