This is a very thoughtful article, which I see is part of a series from the same publication about suicide. There is good information here.
One paragraph jumped out at me: "Some states allow for court-ordered treatment plans. No studies have been done on whether this could prevent suicides, another example of gaps in knowledge, Caine says. Such ideas, he says, lie 'at the edge of what we know and what we don't know.'" Ugh, so even rather basic research on what might help hasn't been tried yet. We need to know more to do more.
The article also included some inspiring examples, including an Army officer who had come close to suicide himself about seven years ago during a combat deployment. "Today, he cannot recover from colon cancer diagnosed in 2012 that doctors declared terminal last year. In June, they said he had only months left. Faced with his own mortality, Fitch consulted his wife, Samantha Wolk, and reflected on the 22 veteran suicides occurring each day. He chose to devote his remaining time to prevent others from committing suicide.
"'I've always wanted to focus on trying to leave the world a better place,' he says."
Martin E. P. Seligman, in his book The Optimistic Child,[1] reviews some of the research current to about a decade ago about "self-esteem" programs in schools. They have long been known to be dangerous. The rising suicide rate compared to earlier birth cohorts in the United States suggests that young people in my generation and younger were not exposed in childhood to "optimism" as Seligman defines it but rather to "self-esteem" thinking, which doesn't leave people with enough inner strength to face a lot of challenges in life. Changing our thinking about what kind of thinking builds resilience in young people would help prevent suicide (and help everyone enjoy life better). There is already research on this, and we should apply it more.
One paragraph jumped out at me: "Some states allow for court-ordered treatment plans. No studies have been done on whether this could prevent suicides, another example of gaps in knowledge, Caine says. Such ideas, he says, lie 'at the edge of what we know and what we don't know.'" Ugh, so even rather basic research on what might help hasn't been tried yet. We need to know more to do more.
The article also included some inspiring examples, including an Army officer who had come close to suicide himself about seven years ago during a combat deployment. "Today, he cannot recover from colon cancer diagnosed in 2012 that doctors declared terminal last year. In June, they said he had only months left. Faced with his own mortality, Fitch consulted his wife, Samantha Wolk, and reflected on the 22 veteran suicides occurring each day. He chose to devote his remaining time to prevent others from committing suicide.
"'I've always wanted to focus on trying to leave the world a better place,' he says."
Martin E. P. Seligman, in his book The Optimistic Child,[1] reviews some of the research current to about a decade ago about "self-esteem" programs in schools. They have long been known to be dangerous. The rising suicide rate compared to earlier birth cohorts in the United States suggests that young people in my generation and younger were not exposed in childhood to "optimism" as Seligman defines it but rather to "self-esteem" thinking, which doesn't leave people with enough inner strength to face a lot of challenges in life. Changing our thinking about what kind of thinking builds resilience in young people would help prevent suicide (and help everyone enjoy life better). There is already research on this, and we should apply it more.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Optimistic-Child-Depression-Resili...