We need to promote health literacy for suicide

Fifty percent or more of those who die by suicide do not seek help prior to their deadly suicide action. This equates to over 400,000 individuals out of some 800,000 suicides worldwide each year, despite decades of national suicide prevention programs offering help to persons at risk of suicide. Traditionally, suicidal behavior has been conceptualized as a mental health disorder. In a medical model we expect people who suffer from problems with mental health to seek help, similar to somatic problems. The fact is that they don’t seek help. I contend that the medical approach to the suicidal individual is a misconception. We need models of suicide that are meaningful to people. It is not the depression but the person who acts in an emotional crisis. We need to promote suicide health literacy as a public health issue. For this, we need to develop novel channels to disseminate person-centered models of suicide, for instance by using digital technology, particularly for young people. The presentation will describe promising new projects.

Konrad Michel is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist and prof. emeritus at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He learned to understand the suicidal mind from his extensive clinical work with suicidal patients. His model of suicidal behavior overcomes the limitations of the traditional medical model, which understands suicide as a consequence of mental illness. He is training health professionals all over the world in the use of his person-centered, narrative-based approach to suicidal patients. His main message is: Suicide is not caused by a mental disorder - it is an action which makes sense to the person. Considering the vast number of people who die by suicide without seeking help he calls for promotion and dissemination of suicide literacy as a public health issue. In his book “The Suicidal Person: A New Look at a Human Phenomenon” (Columbia University Press 2023) he describes the development of a new concept of suicide and how people can learn to deal with life-threatening thoughts and plans.