Empirical, Clinical, and Conceptual Evidence Converges to Indicate Good Support for the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide

David Jobes, PhD, ABPP, is the founder of CAMS-care, LLC. He began his career in 1987 in the Counseling Center of the Catholic University of America, where he developed a suicide risk assessment tool for college students that evolved into CAMS. Dr. Jobes is now a Professor of Psychology and Associate Director of Clinical Training at Catholic; he has trained thousands of mental health professionals in the United States and abroad in evidence-based assessment and treatment of suicide risk and the use of CAMS.

Thomas Joiner went to college at Princeton and received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. He is The Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Florida State University. Dr. Joiner’s work is on the psychology, neurobiology, and treatment of suicidal behavior and related conditions. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and was given the 2020 James McKeen Cattell Award for lifetime contributions to the area of applied psychological research from the Association for Psychological Science. A consultant to NASA’s Human Research Program, he was the Director of the DoD-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium, a ten-year, $70 million dollar project. Dr. Joiner runs a clinical and consulting practice specializing in suicidal behavior, including legal consultation on suits involving death by suicide.