The statistics about suicide are alarming, yet largely unrecognized. Worldwide, more people die by suicide than from all homicides and wars combined. In the United States, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death, with an average of one person dying by suicide every 15.2 minutes, and one person attempting suicide every 38 seconds. Seventy-one percent of psychotherapists report having at least one client who has attempted suicide, while 28 percent report having had at least one client die by suicide.
For the general population, suicide is often a silent tragedy. For the media, it is a treacherous taboo. For those of us in the mental health professions, it is a deeply disturbing occupational hazard and the most common psychiatric emergency we face. Although we as clinicians cannot prevent all suicides, we can lessen the number of suicides. This is why we need to learn all we can about suicide to better understand, assess and treat suicidal individuals.
There are many misconceptions about suicide, one of them being that suicidal people want to die and cannot be helped. What both mental health professionals and the public should know is that the suicidal state is almost always transient and treatable. Therapists can prepare themselves for working with such clients by learning to implement the tools and techniques that have been found effective to assess and treat suicidal individuals.
Unfortunately, when therapists are not equipped to deal with the challenges of treating a suicidal client, the client often ends up being passed from therapist to therapist without ever receiving optimal care or even the basics of the standard of care. By understanding what's going on inside the suicidal person's mind, recognizing warning signs, having a decision tree for assessing and managing suicide risk, and knowing which treatments are most effective, therapists can save lives. First, they can actively help clients out of the suicidal state; then secondly, they can assist them in developing the skills needed to create and sustain lives worth living.