Debunking the Debunking

Debunking the DebunkingDeborah Tanen, a lecturer in Sociology at UCL, has written an article in which she discusses how conversation and deception can cause and/or contribute to certain kinds of mental health problems. The essay is called 'Deborah Tanen's Sex Lies and Conversation Cause and Effect Essay', and it has been published in the University College London's Sociology Department's 'Collections' section.The essay, which was also published in the Guardian, is largely based on the research Deborah Tanen conducted, of which the author is the Editor-in-Chief. It details how Deborah Tanen, a sociology professor from the University of Central Lancashire, interviewed some 600 sex and relationship students, focusing on the factors that lead to them thinking of suicide and/or seriously considering taking their own lives, and how she used those findings to write her own essay. What follows is a list of what the research revealed, and a discussion of how Deborah Tanen's Sex Lies and Conve rsation Cause and Effect Essay has come to be.Deborah Tanen states: 'These days, it seems, there are as many people who contemplate killing themselves as there are who have actually killed themselves. They should not be treated as isolated events, but instead as part of a trend, a continuous trend. I want to examine how and why this trend might have developed.'To understand what the research meant to Deborah Tanen, she explained to the reader what her study was looking at, and the reason behind doing so: 'I decided to work in a university sociology department so that I could avoid the stereotype associated with what psychologists call 'the dark side of sex'. I wanted to be as objective as possible and then do some research on what might cause people to think about killing themselves.' Deborah Tanen then went on to describe what she discovered:Deborah Tanen explains that her first aim was to 'dig into the usual belief that sexual thoughts and fantasies are 'selfish' '. The idea was t hat if sexual thoughts and fantasies are seen as a symptom of weakness and psychological distress, then perhaps those who start out in relationships with 'sexual inadequacies' might be encouraged to carry out self-harm.Deborah Tanen admits that there was one case in which a person found it 'appealing' to use a mirror to kill herself: 'People usually react to things in life by reacting negatively. In my own research, I found that even though the person who thought about killing himself or herself thought of suicide, they reacted differently than normal, often getting angry or being horrified by what they were doing.'Deborah Tanen then describes her study on 'motivational contexts': 'What I did was ask my participants about their favourite motivational scenarios. I explained to them that the situations were generally negative, but were designed to elicit a feeling of powerlessness and despair, so that they would be ready to get rid of it.'Deborah Tanen also mentioned some other themes in her research, such as individuals who consider themselves to be 'nice people', and people who have suicidal thoughts are often thinking of 'depressing places'. She concluded by stating: 'It is these kinds of 'closely related' events that may be the start of a dangerous pattern.'