Completed suicide in the gifted: a late comment on "suicide among gifted women"

A recent study by Tomlinson-Keasey, Warren, and Elliott (1986) found differences between completed suicides in Terman's sample of gifted children and comparison subjects. The present article suggests that the differences identified in Tomlinson-Keasey et al. may have been confounded by the fact that completed suicides are typically found to have higher levels of psychiatric disturbance than nonsuicides. Data are presented to illustrate that when the completed suicides in Terman's sample are matched for psychiatric disturbance with the comparison subjects, few differences are found.