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Got permission from my former Psychiatrist to post some of the notes he took at the National Suicide Prevention Conference in Adelaide recently. Thought it might be interesting to folks and spark some discussion.
- - Moving away from a pure mental illness treatment model of suicide. I’ve always said (and can back this up) that the ’90% of deaths by suicide is due to mental illness’ is a myth, and a dangerous one at that.
- - Recognising that suicide acts are entirely, utterly devastating but also entirely utterly unpredictable even for the actor, precisely because of their highly complex and dynamic, ultimately 'aleatory' (random) nature.
- - Moving TOWARD a shared humanity approach of suicide: Emotional pain and distress IS emotional pain and distress, more reflective often of problems of life/living rather than problems of (mental) illness. Distress in response to life stressors should not immediately be ‘diagnosed’ (although mental illnesses of course should be very carefully screened for and addressed as necessary) and hospitalisation needs to be a very much last resort measure.
- - Our response ideally would be NON-ALARMIST: I repeatedly heard the message from Lived Experience workers: We don’t need to freak out and get scared when someone tells us they are suicidal! Suicidality is EVERYBODYS BUSINESS.
- -There is a Need to create community holding, healing, storytelling and sharing spaces. A therapist also discussed a need for a ‘de-mental health-ification’ of suicide prevention discussions in language. Even in Mental illness, SOCIAL determinants predominate.
- - As workers in MH, we need to focus on facilitating skills regarding adaptation to distress, and the building of lives lived with meaning. This needs committed collaboration from our clients and patients. And this needs a whole society response. Of course, we still have to ensure the importance of detecting mental illnesses and treating these accordingly, but these contribute to a much, much smaller proportion of death by suicide compared to the oft-touted 90% (which triggers me no end). There is an argument that the predominance of a Neoliberalism/Capitalist society facilitates conscious and unconscious stigma toward minorities, suffering in general and hence possibly suicide.
- - Happy to hear that our Suicide Prevention has adopted the above framework in Legislation. Again this reflects that its everybody’s business: NOT just the mental health workforce but also Police and Ambulance services, Correction services, Child Protection, Education, Infrastructure and Transport (this I think makes a much larger impact if done correctly)
- - Finally, all the above settles on the importance of the cultivation of social belongingness, safe places to have our stories heard and validated, and experiencing “Regular and Small Doses of Sincere Connection”.
