Ruby, you added the link to Friedson's paper, "Psychotherapy and the Fundamentalist Client," after I submitted my previous post.
That is an excellent paper on the subject and she does discuss Jehovah's Witnesses directly in the context of fundamentalist, high-demand/control groups. A key component of her over-all thesis is that Jehovah's Witnesses as well all "Fundamentalists who experience psychological distress may hesitate to obtain help from the mental health community."
This is a very real and serious problem.
However, Friedson only addresses suicide in reference to current and ex-members that are dealing with gender and sexuality issues. She does not discuss it among these people in general. Nevertheless, her research is solid and her conclusions informative.
She writes that the "psychological consequences of such attempts to deny one’s self are dire" and (citing Lalich and McLaren, 2010, p. 1311 ) "increase the potential for self-destructive behaviors, such as alcoholism, drug use, and suicide" (2015, p. 700). - [Emphasis added]
It should be noted that Friedson's work is directed toward educating mental health professionals about helping former members of fundamentalist, high-control groups and was not written with the purpose of educating people dealing with those issues or directly helping them. At the time she wrote this paper, she was a doctoral candidate in the clinical psychology program at the Derner Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University.
Consider this caution she shares with her intended audience, therapists and clinical psychologists:
Therapists who were not raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses may view their patients through their own personal biases; some may see many of the practices and teachings as extreme, contradictory, irrational, and/or unhealthy. The temptation may be to try to refute beliefs that are offensive and/or detrimental (2015, p. 710).
One of Friedson's goals is to create a therapeutic alliance with the patient, an approach which she describes as “culturally sensitive psychotherapeutic interventions” (2015, p. 711).
But to bring this back to the point of the OP, the relevant part of Friedson's work is that a fundamentalist mindset can lead to extreme emotional distress thereby inducing mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, and that the religious pressure to deny self can cause some individuals to become suicidal.
Her purpose in writing was to help therapists not familiar with fundamentalist belief systems treat ex-members suffering from these emotional and mental illnesses, to help them recover and find relief--primarily through cognitive behavioral therapeutic approaches to psychotherapy.
Again, this is not a paper intended for the general public and especially not for someone feeling suicidal.
(FYI: Friedson does not mention or reference Hassan in this paper).
