My Mizzou Story
Lance Swenson
By: Rachel Kaatmann
When Lance Swenson learned he had received a fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 2003, he and his adviser were making plans to revise his grant application.
"I was blown away," he says of the news. Swenson is a doctoral candidate in psychological sciences.
The NIMH National Research Service Award fellowships support doctoral candidates who are planning their dissertation research and demonstrate potential for a productive research career.
Swenson applied for the fellowship to support his research in emotional and behavioral problems in youths. Specifically, he's investigating friends' knowledge of distress in youths.
"I hope that this line of research will eventually lead to better ways to identify children and adolescents at risk for attempting suicide," he says.
In cases of suicide with children, the victims' friends are generally not used as resources, he says. "The best indicator we have is evaluating a prior (suicide) attempt, but it's too late in the game."
Swenson previously conducted a study about parents' awareness of their children's thoughts of or attempts at suicide and found that 80 to 85 percent were unaware.
Swenson came to MU for his master's and doctoral work because he wanted a Research 1 institution and the opportunity to teach under the guidance of mentoring professors.
In 2002, he began work toward a doctorate in child and developmental psychology. His dissertation studies the roles of parents and close friends as information sources of children's and adolescents' adjustment.
"In a study of fifth-, seventh- and ninth-grade students, friends were able to report the symptoms of depression, and were about as accurate in their ratings as similar research has found parents to be," Swenson says of the study that provided a good case for his fellowship.
With the NIMH fellowship, Swenson surveyed 650 students in fifth, eighth and 11 th grades on their emotional and behavioral adjustment, specifically identifying reciprocal friendships and children without friends. He is currently cleaning the data and will be able to use about 400 participants.
"So far, I found that 30 percent of the friendships are not reciprocal," Swenson says. "I am curious to see the level of distress among kids without friends, to see if they have behavioral problems, destructive behavior or are more depressed."
The goals of the project lie in two divergent paths within clinical and preventative perspectives. Swenson wants to identify the students who are knowledgeable about their friends who are potential victims, and he wants to make that information more accessible for preventing cases of suicide.
"Lance has the potential to provide important information about children's and adolescents' knowledge about their friends' emotional and behavioral well-being," says his adviser, Assistant Professor Amanda Rose.
"As youths get older, their parents may know less about how well their children are doing; however, adolescents' friends may have a lot of insight into one another's functioning."
Rose says that schools and communities can benefit from this research by developing programs that teach youths ways to know when their friends are in trouble and how to encourage them to get help.
Swenson's short-term goals include studying rural versus urban communities and possibly children and adolescents below fifth grade and above 11 th grade.
Eventually, he wants to study children in every grade and determine how friends' knowledge influences stability throughout the years. "My main goal is to facilitate ways to identify those individuals at risk (of suicide) as soon as possible, which can help them lead productive, happy lives in the future," he says.
In addition to his research, Swenson works as a staff clinician at the MU Psychological Sciences Clinic in Columbia, Mo., where he provides adult, adolescent, child and family psychotherapy, including clinical assessments and treatment planning.