The American Association of Suicidology asked about new things that have been done to prevent suicide in 2013. This was some of my response.
You ask, “What have you done in 2013 to help prevent suicide?”
I just saw a client who had recently been discharged from a well-known local private psychiatric hospital. She is the second suicidal patient who told me the same story. They both experienced condescension and judgment from the staff. Essentially they were told to “get over it” and “quit belaboring their problems”. They were told they both needed an antidepressant and to try to stop dwelling on the past.
There is nothing wrong with taking an antidepressant if it can help the brain’s information processing and provide some uplift and/or clarity by increasing the necessary neurochemicals that the brain in question is lacking. But to rely on medication as the most significant solution is not going to make the patient feel they have any more control over their condition than they had before their hospitalization. They both felt like they were warehoused until willing to say they were no longer suicidal…whether they were or not.
A hospital truly devoted to preventing suicide could do it by creating a discharge plan that included educating and forming a support team of the friends and/or family members identified by the suicidal person. To release a suicidal patient without obtaining releases to talk to and educate the concerned others in how to support the patient is unconscionable. There are no confidentiality or HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) violations involved with forming a JSP3© support team. The patient is the one who actively plans, approves and leads their own support team. Forming an educated support team for a suicidal patient should be routine.
I provide free 3 hour sessions to form JSP3© (Jensen Suicide Prevention Peer Protocol) support teams for suicidal people who want to retrain their brain and learn a new way of being. I help suicidal people get into and stay in the driver’s seat of their lives. They realize they can’t do it alone because most have tried unsuccessfully for years. When introduced to the JSP3© support team method of retraining their brain, the suicidal person begins to feel agency and self-efficacy sometimes for the first time in their lives.
It is important to note that epidemiological research shows that the greatest risk for suicide is in the first few weeks following discharge from the hospital.1 In fact, in Britain, researchers discovered that 41% of the suicides after discharge occur before the first follow up mental health appointment.2 In addition, it is estimated that nearly 1% of inpatient discharges result in suicide within the first year following discharge.3
I am doing everything I can as a suicidologist (who specializes in and teaches treatment of suicidality) to convince hospitals they need to form JSP3© (Jensen Suicide Prevention Peer Protocol) teams for those who are dealing with suicidality. I have provided free counseling and free formation of JSP3© teams for clients and their families and concerned others and it works. By explaining the psychobiology of suicide, the entire team including the suicidal person realizes that the patient’s suicidality is not their own fault. They understand that it is an enduring coping mechanism that formed a neural pathway and requires retraining the brain to atrophy that long-term neural pathway. The JSP3© team provides the support in this process while a licensed therapist helps resolve the underlying trauma that produced the helplessness and the hopelessness where the need “not to be here” began.
More information is available in my book,” Just Because You’re Suicidal Doesn’t Mean You’re Crazy: The Psychobiology of Suicide”, where I reveal how I retrained by brain with the help of a dedicated team of friends. After 24 years of suicidality and my daily struggle to stay alive, with the support of my peers, I came to know a new life. I now do this for my clients and it is the most empowering thing they have experienced in their lives.
When I teach “Recognition, Assessment and Treatment of Suicidality”, a course now required for all mental health therapists by Washington state Department of Health, I currently include the importance of peer support. More information is available at www.jsp3.org.
During my 24 years struggling with suicidality, I spent three long hospitalizations in psych wards, each after suicide attempts of ever increasing lethality. Never did any of those ward clinicians suggest that a support team of my concerned others could make life easier for me battling suicidality on the outside. Instead my friends stepped up on their own and remained determined that they were going to work together in an organized way to keep me alive until I could keep myself alive.
It was through this process developed through intuition and dedication that underpinned my recovery. Now I form those teams for others who want to climb into the driver’s seat of their lives and begin retraining their brains.
I will never give up forming JSP3© support teams. Although I sometimes gave my team plenty of opportunity, not one member ever gave up on me. If not for them, I doubt I’d be here.
1 Crawford, M. (2004) Suicide following discharge from in-patient psychiatric care. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 10. 434-438.
2 Appleby, L., Dennehy, J., Thomas, C., et al (1999a) Aftercare and clinical characteristics of people with mental illness who commit suicide: a case–control study. Lancet, 353, 1397–1400.
3 Goldacre, M., Seagroatt, V. & Hawton, K. (1993) Suicide after discharge from psychiatric in-patient care. Lancet, 342, 283–286.