Dr. Thomas Joiner
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 in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University (FSU). Dr. Joiner’s work is on the psychology, neurobiology, and treatment of suicidal behavior and related conditions. Author of over 780 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Joiner is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Suicide & Life-Threatening Behavior, and was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. He received the Dublin Award for career achievement in suicide research from the American Association of Suicidology, as well as research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and Department of Defense (DoD). The Lawton Professorship and the Dublin Award are the single highest honors bestowed, respectively, by FSU and the American Association of Suicidology. In 2017, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2019, was given the 2020 James McKeen Cattell Award for lifetime contributions to the area of applied psychological research from the Association for Psychological Science.
He is a consultant to NASA’s Human Research Program, and is the Director of the DoD-funded Military Suicide Research Consortium, a ten-year, $70 million dollar project.
Dr. Joiner has authored or edited eighteen books, including Why People Die By Suicide, published in 2005 by Harvard University Press, and Myths About Suicide, published in 2010, also with Harvard University Press. The book Mindlessness: The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism, came out in 2017, from Oxford. Largely in connection with Why People Die By Suicide, he has made numerous media appearances, including two appearances on the Dr. Phil Show. He runs a part-time clinical and consulting practice specializing in, among other topics, suicidal behavior, including legal consultation on suits involving death by suicide.