Dr. Philip O'Keeffe
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publication woes 280822

28/8/2022

 
I am awaiting feedback from a tentative London 'publisher of new authors' on my 373 page draft manuscript - "Death by suicide etc." following its dispatch by email to them on 12 August 2022, just over a cupla weeks ago. I lately (viz. ten days ago) found an article ["How to avoid Libel and Defamation as an Author" by Orna Ross, from selfpublishingadvice.org] about that L & D subject. Potential liability in L & D exists in any published written material, including websites, blogs, articles, pamphlets and books, where a person or organisation alleges they were wronged.

A person / organisation is libelled if a publication:
i) discredits them in their trade, business, or profession;
ii) exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt;
iii) causes them to be shunned or avoided; and / or
iv) lowers them in the eyes of society.
(Ross, 2021)

The test of libel in a court is "what a reasonable reader is likely to take as [the] natural or ordinary meaning of the published content in their full context". What the writer intended, as author or publisher, is irrelevant.

Thing is my take on suicide challenges some conventional views, opinions, statements, claims and assertions. Each of these position statements may be capable of being attributed to, or stated or repeated by a person or organisation. And therein lies the rub - check Hamlet's soliloquy. If any content is found (by a publisher or later by a reader) that allegedly libels or defames a person or organisation, then the author loses [unless he proves otherwise] and will be liable to pay them damages/costs as determined by the court. Lesson: avoid at all costs. This story will run for a while. More later.

WHERE I AM TODAY - 22 Aug 2022

22/8/2022

 
Managed to open these 'blog' pages - not without 'usual' (?) issues with Dr Google's pedantic mania for exactitude. What did not surprise me though was a PA media article in today's online Guardian focusing upon funding resource issues allegedly linked to missed follow-up psychiatry appointments by patients on release from hospital. Just to ensure that an alleged cause/effect notion was not missed by readers, a following sentence in the article, albeit indirectly, linked suicide incidence to this 'missed appointments' resource issue:
 "The latest data from the Office for National Statistics said 4,912 suicides were registered in 2020 in England, with the male suicide rate at 15.3 per 100,000 and the rate among women at 4.9."
What's missing of course is any mention of the significant tranche of suicide deceased in GB/Ireland, who were unknown to either GP or any healthcare resource, before their death by suicide. O'Connor et al. (1999) confirmed that of 142 suicides in Greater Belfast in 1993/94, 64 (45.1%) had almost negligible contact with healthcare in the year before their death. Less than 5% had contacted their GP, or had any psychiatric history, or had been hospitalised. They were likely to have died as a result of their first suicide attempt, almost 50% were living alone at that time and over half (53.1%) were in employment. I'm not aware of any more recent published study based upon coroner's office files although Black (2021) estimated that "
around 70% of people who die by suicide in Northern Ireland are not known to mental health services."
Clearly, additional psychiatric resources would be unlikely to impinge upon the fate of that significant, but unrecognised, 'at risk' constituency. Whether they could reduce suicide's attrition of recently discharged psychiatric patients is not addressed in the Guardian piece, although the Royal College of Psychiatrists does suggest therein that 'proper follow-up care [may] prevent suicides'.
My own work has convinced me of Durkheim's (1897/2002) view that suicide is a political issue - he referred to his research as a 'study in sociology' - that will not be effectively addressed other than by determined political policies, strategies and resources underpinned by a comprehensive understanding of human suicidal behaviour in all of its complexity and brutality.      
I recently joined up online with a US initiative - called iCause or PAUSE - whose mission is summarised here:
"ICAUSE (International Coalition for Addressing & Understanding Suicide Experiences) is: a global collective, grounded in compassion, social & economic justice, and health equity for all, valuing lived experiences with suicide; with the purpose of reducing the suffering associated with suicide and reducing suicide death rates through community engagement, support, education, advocacy, and research that informs clinical & non-clinical practices. ~ 2021.12.03".
Whether this outfit will grasp the nettle of reform by engaging effectively and forcefully with the dominant dual 
hegemony of psychiatry and psychopharmacology, remains to be seen. For sure their reference to 'social and economic justice' as a key component of suicidology seems to point in that direction.      

POST COVID-19 UPDATE

21/8/2022

 
Looks like I've been away 'behind a mask' for over two years. During thar time I've completed a draft manuscript entitled 'Death by Suicide: Facts, myths and fallacies'. 18 chapters/sections in 373 A4 pages. Currently for 'consideration' by a London publisher - uncertain what happens next. More follows.

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