Dr. Tracy Witte
Background
I received my B.S. in Psychology from The Ohio State University in 2004 and received my M.S. and Ph.D. from Florida State University’s Clinical Psychology Program in 2006 and 2010, respectively, and completed my clinical residency at the Brown University Medical School Clinical Psychology Consortium. I am currently the Director of Clinical Training, an Alumni Professor of Clinical Psychology at Auburn University, a licensed clinical psychologist (AL #1691), and the director of the Suicidal Behavior and Psychopathology Laboratory.
My research program focuses on understanding and preventing suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). My initial work centered around testing and refining Joiner’s (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide (e.g., Van Orden, Witte, et al., 2010). In particular, I have a line of research focused on a construct known as the acquired capability for suicide, which is proposed to distinguish the few who will die by suicide from the many who desire suicide. My work in this area includes a psychometric investigation of a measure of acquired capability (Ribeiro, Witte et al., 2014) and several studies examining factors proposed to contribute toward its development, such as restrictive eating (Witte et al., 2012; Witte et al., 2016; Zuromski & Witte, 2015), posttraumatic stress disorder (Spitzer, Zuromski, Davis, Witte, & Weathers, 2018; Zuromski, Davis, Witte et al., 2014), and traits like sensation seeking and stoicism (Witte et al., 2012).
Although the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide has been remarkable in its generativity, my work and the work of others have made it clear that it is not a perfect theory (few are). Moreover, every day in the United States, approximately 129 individuals die by suicide (Drapeau & McIntosh, 2018) – a rate that has remained stable since 1955 (World Health Organization, 2011). Franklin et al.’s (2017) meta-analysis of 50 years of risk factor research revealed that researchers have tended to conduct similar studies over and over again, and nearly all risk factors are weak individual predictors of STBs. In collaboration with this research group, I conducted a follow-up meta-analysis that was a more fine-grained examination of externalizing symptoms (e.g., substance use disorders, impulsivity) as risk factors for STBs (Witte et al., 2018). As with the larger meta-analysis, we found that the weighted mean odds ratios were all below 2.0 in magnitude, suggesting limited clinical utility for any individual externalizing symptom as an STB predictor.
Novel Approaches to Understanding Suicide
These meta-analytic findings suggest the need for a different approach than has been used in the vast majority of existing suicide research. Accordingly, my more recent work has focused on applying novel data analytic techniques to the understanding of STBs. For example, in a grant-funded study of military personnel, we utilized taxometric analysis to empirically investigate whether suicide risk should be understood as a categorical entity (i.e. one that is qualitatively discrete from non-pathological functioning) versus a dimensional entity (Witte et al., 2017). Although taxometric analysis has existed for decades, our 2017 study was among the first to apply this set of techniques to suicide risk. Unlike much of the existing suicide literature, we were not interested in examining whether individual risk factors were predictive of suicidal behavior; instead, we used a constellation of factors to investigate the underlying structure of suicide risk. We found very strong evidence that suicide risk has a categorical latent structure; that is, individuals at high risk for suicide are qualitatively distinct from those at low risk. Crucially, our findings were recently replicated by an independent research group (Ruffino et al., 2018, Psychological Assessment), who not only found evidence of a suicide risk taxon, but also demonstrated that suicide taxon members were more than six times likelier than non-members to make a suicide attempt at follow-up. The robustness of this odds ratio contrasts with those found for individual risk factors using standard data analytic techniques. My research group has also applied latent difference score modeling (Zuromski, Cero, & Witte, 2017) to demonstrate that insomnia symptoms drive short-term changes in suicide ideation, rather than the reverse. We have additionally conducted a network analysis of 17 million Twitter users, finding that suicide-related verbalizations are more assortative than would be expected by chance (Cero & Witte, 2020). This assortativity persists through two degrees of separation, even after accounting for depressive verbalizations. More recently, we applied network analysis to understand the comorbidity between PTSD and STBs, finding that negative beliefs and risky behaviors were highly influential (Spitzer, Benfer, Zuromski, Marx, & Witte, 2022). We are currently conducting a replication and extension of this work in a multi-sample study (Gomez, Camden, Jackson, Weathers, & Witte, in preparation).
In addition to the lines of research described above, my group has also conducted experimental research examining the impact of suicide-related news media on a variety of outcomes (Williams & Witte, 2018; Williams, Gauthier, & Witte, 2021) and the impact of monitoring responses to suicide ideation measures on participants' willingness to endorse suicide ideation (Brydon, Waitz-Kudla, Fox, Smith, & Witte, 2024). All of these experimental studies tested long-held assumptions in the field of suicidology, and our findings were contrary to what would have been expected. Specifically, we found no evidence that exposure to graphic news articles about suicide affected any facet of suicide risk, including implicit measures. Additionally, whether or not participants' responses were being monitored for risk assessment purposes did not affect their willingness to endorse suicidal symptoms.
Suicide and Other Negative Mental Health Outcomes in Veterinary Professionals and Students
I also have a line of research focused on risk for suicide among veterinarians. I initially became interested in this area because of my foundation in the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide. Specifically, my first study demonstrated that experience euthanizing companion animals was associated with acquired capability for suicide (Witte et al., 2013). Although I think that acquired capability for suicide plays a role in explaining the elevated risk for suicide among veterinarians, my subsequent work has been broader in focus, extending into the public health domain. For example, my collaborators and I conducted a national survey of nearly 12,000 practicing veterinarians (Nett, Witte, et al., 2015). One key finding was that veterinarians were more likely to have experienced suicide ideation compared with the general population, but were less likely to have a history of suicide attempt. One concern is that, given their access to and knowledge about lethal means, veterinarians who are suicidal might be more likely to have a fatal outcome when making a suicide attempt. Consistent with this idea, my collaborators and I demonstrated that pentobarbital (i.e. a drug commonly used for euthanasia) is the most common suicide method used by veterinarians who die by suicide (Witte et al., 2019). Moreover, the suicide mortality for veterinarians was no longer elevated after removing decedents who had died from pentobarbital overdose. These findings have critical implications for suicide prevention and suggest that improving administrative controls for pentobarbital could lead to a noticeable suicide reduction among veterinarians. Along these lines, our group conducted a focus group study to gather information from practicing veterinarians regarding what types of means safety protocols would be most effective and acceptable in their settings (Waitz-Kudla, Kramper, Roark, Mani, & Witte, 2023). Results from this study have informed our pre-registered experimental study investigating effects of messaging on veterinarians' willingness to improve security of their pentobarbital storage practices.
Intervention Development and Adaptation
In recent years, our research group has become increasingly active in the development and adaptation of brief, online interventions to increase accessibility of mental health care. This has involved the use of mixed (i.e. both quantitative and qualitative) methods. For example, I was co-PI on a DOD-funded grant (PI: Dr. April Smith) that examined the efficacy of a brief interoceptive deficits intervention (Reconnecting to Internal Sensations and Experiences [RISE]) in a sample of military personnel at risk for suicide. We found a positive effect of of RISE on interoceptive awareness, and these gains were maintained at three-month follow-up (Smith, Witte et al., 2023). Currently, we are working to adapt this intervention for the veterinary population (Fox, Brydon, Sawyer, Smith, & Witte, in preparation). Our research group has also developed (Crosby & Witte, 2023) and tested the efficacy of (Crosby, Troop-Gordon, & Witte, 2023) Sleep Scholar, which is a brief, online intervention for insomnia aimed at college students. Finally, consistent with our call to action paper aimed at encouraging researchers to develop culturally responsive and scalable mental health interventions (Alvarez, Waitz-Kudla, Brydon, Crosby, & Witte, 2022), we have adapted Pennebaker's Expressive Writing intervention for use among BIPOC students enrolled at Predominantly White Institutions. The adapted intervention is known as Writing Wrongs and is aimed at helping students cope with microaggressions.
Throughout my career, my approach to understanding and preventing suicide has employed a broad array of statistical and methodological techniques. In the coming decades, I anticipate that my work will remain focused on STBs, while branching out into new approaches, methods, and populations.
More information about me can be found on the Auburn University Department of Psychological Sciences website.
I received my B.S. in Psychology from The Ohio State University in 2004 and received my M.S. and Ph.D. from Florida State University’s Clinical Psychology Program in 2006 and 2010, respectively, and completed my clinical residency at the Brown University Medical School Clinical Psychology Consortium. I am currently the Director of Clinical Training, an Alumni Professor of Clinical Psychology at Auburn University, a licensed clinical psychologist (AL #1691), and the director of the Suicidal Behavior and Psychopathology Laboratory.
My research program focuses on understanding and preventing suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). My initial work centered around testing and refining Joiner’s (2005) interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide (e.g., Van Orden, Witte, et al., 2010). In particular, I have a line of research focused on a construct known as the acquired capability for suicide, which is proposed to distinguish the few who will die by suicide from the many who desire suicide. My work in this area includes a psychometric investigation of a measure of acquired capability (Ribeiro, Witte et al., 2014) and several studies examining factors proposed to contribute toward its development, such as restrictive eating (Witte et al., 2012; Witte et al., 2016; Zuromski & Witte, 2015), posttraumatic stress disorder (Spitzer, Zuromski, Davis, Witte, & Weathers, 2018; Zuromski, Davis, Witte et al., 2014), and traits like sensation seeking and stoicism (Witte et al., 2012).
Although the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide has been remarkable in its generativity, my work and the work of others have made it clear that it is not a perfect theory (few are). Moreover, every day in the United States, approximately 129 individuals die by suicide (Drapeau & McIntosh, 2018) – a rate that has remained stable since 1955 (World Health Organization, 2011). Franklin et al.’s (2017) meta-analysis of 50 years of risk factor research revealed that researchers have tended to conduct similar studies over and over again, and nearly all risk factors are weak individual predictors of STBs. In collaboration with this research group, I conducted a follow-up meta-analysis that was a more fine-grained examination of externalizing symptoms (e.g., substance use disorders, impulsivity) as risk factors for STBs (Witte et al., 2018). As with the larger meta-analysis, we found that the weighted mean odds ratios were all below 2.0 in magnitude, suggesting limited clinical utility for any individual externalizing symptom as an STB predictor.
Novel Approaches to Understanding Suicide
These meta-analytic findings suggest the need for a different approach than has been used in the vast majority of existing suicide research. Accordingly, my more recent work has focused on applying novel data analytic techniques to the understanding of STBs. For example, in a grant-funded study of military personnel, we utilized taxometric analysis to empirically investigate whether suicide risk should be understood as a categorical entity (i.e. one that is qualitatively discrete from non-pathological functioning) versus a dimensional entity (Witte et al., 2017). Although taxometric analysis has existed for decades, our 2017 study was among the first to apply this set of techniques to suicide risk. Unlike much of the existing suicide literature, we were not interested in examining whether individual risk factors were predictive of suicidal behavior; instead, we used a constellation of factors to investigate the underlying structure of suicide risk. We found very strong evidence that suicide risk has a categorical latent structure; that is, individuals at high risk for suicide are qualitatively distinct from those at low risk. Crucially, our findings were recently replicated by an independent research group (Ruffino et al., 2018, Psychological Assessment), who not only found evidence of a suicide risk taxon, but also demonstrated that suicide taxon members were more than six times likelier than non-members to make a suicide attempt at follow-up. The robustness of this odds ratio contrasts with those found for individual risk factors using standard data analytic techniques. My research group has also applied latent difference score modeling (Zuromski, Cero, & Witte, 2017) to demonstrate that insomnia symptoms drive short-term changes in suicide ideation, rather than the reverse. We have additionally conducted a network analysis of 17 million Twitter users, finding that suicide-related verbalizations are more assortative than would be expected by chance (Cero & Witte, 2020). This assortativity persists through two degrees of separation, even after accounting for depressive verbalizations. More recently, we applied network analysis to understand the comorbidity between PTSD and STBs, finding that negative beliefs and risky behaviors were highly influential (Spitzer, Benfer, Zuromski, Marx, & Witte, 2022). We are currently conducting a replication and extension of this work in a multi-sample study (Gomez, Camden, Jackson, Weathers, & Witte, in preparation).
In addition to the lines of research described above, my group has also conducted experimental research examining the impact of suicide-related news media on a variety of outcomes (Williams & Witte, 2018; Williams, Gauthier, & Witte, 2021) and the impact of monitoring responses to suicide ideation measures on participants' willingness to endorse suicide ideation (Brydon, Waitz-Kudla, Fox, Smith, & Witte, 2024). All of these experimental studies tested long-held assumptions in the field of suicidology, and our findings were contrary to what would have been expected. Specifically, we found no evidence that exposure to graphic news articles about suicide affected any facet of suicide risk, including implicit measures. Additionally, whether or not participants' responses were being monitored for risk assessment purposes did not affect their willingness to endorse suicidal symptoms.
Suicide and Other Negative Mental Health Outcomes in Veterinary Professionals and Students
I also have a line of research focused on risk for suicide among veterinarians. I initially became interested in this area because of my foundation in the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicide. Specifically, my first study demonstrated that experience euthanizing companion animals was associated with acquired capability for suicide (Witte et al., 2013). Although I think that acquired capability for suicide plays a role in explaining the elevated risk for suicide among veterinarians, my subsequent work has been broader in focus, extending into the public health domain. For example, my collaborators and I conducted a national survey of nearly 12,000 practicing veterinarians (Nett, Witte, et al., 2015). One key finding was that veterinarians were more likely to have experienced suicide ideation compared with the general population, but were less likely to have a history of suicide attempt. One concern is that, given their access to and knowledge about lethal means, veterinarians who are suicidal might be more likely to have a fatal outcome when making a suicide attempt. Consistent with this idea, my collaborators and I demonstrated that pentobarbital (i.e. a drug commonly used for euthanasia) is the most common suicide method used by veterinarians who die by suicide (Witte et al., 2019). Moreover, the suicide mortality for veterinarians was no longer elevated after removing decedents who had died from pentobarbital overdose. These findings have critical implications for suicide prevention and suggest that improving administrative controls for pentobarbital could lead to a noticeable suicide reduction among veterinarians. Along these lines, our group conducted a focus group study to gather information from practicing veterinarians regarding what types of means safety protocols would be most effective and acceptable in their settings (Waitz-Kudla, Kramper, Roark, Mani, & Witte, 2023). Results from this study have informed our pre-registered experimental study investigating effects of messaging on veterinarians' willingness to improve security of their pentobarbital storage practices.
Intervention Development and Adaptation
In recent years, our research group has become increasingly active in the development and adaptation of brief, online interventions to increase accessibility of mental health care. This has involved the use of mixed (i.e. both quantitative and qualitative) methods. For example, I was co-PI on a DOD-funded grant (PI: Dr. April Smith) that examined the efficacy of a brief interoceptive deficits intervention (Reconnecting to Internal Sensations and Experiences [RISE]) in a sample of military personnel at risk for suicide. We found a positive effect of of RISE on interoceptive awareness, and these gains were maintained at three-month follow-up (Smith, Witte et al., 2023). Currently, we are working to adapt this intervention for the veterinary population (Fox, Brydon, Sawyer, Smith, & Witte, in preparation). Our research group has also developed (Crosby & Witte, 2023) and tested the efficacy of (Crosby, Troop-Gordon, & Witte, 2023) Sleep Scholar, which is a brief, online intervention for insomnia aimed at college students. Finally, consistent with our call to action paper aimed at encouraging researchers to develop culturally responsive and scalable mental health interventions (Alvarez, Waitz-Kudla, Brydon, Crosby, & Witte, 2022), we have adapted Pennebaker's Expressive Writing intervention for use among BIPOC students enrolled at Predominantly White Institutions. The adapted intervention is known as Writing Wrongs and is aimed at helping students cope with microaggressions.
Throughout my career, my approach to understanding and preventing suicide has employed a broad array of statistical and methodological techniques. In the coming decades, I anticipate that my work will remain focused on STBs, while branching out into new approaches, methods, and populations.
More information about me can be found on the Auburn University Department of Psychological Sciences website.
Suicidal Behavior & Psychopathology Laboratory
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
