Talking Suicide

Given the poignancy and the sadness surrounding the suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, we have all had something to say about suicide. I have written a number of posts about it. Others have done the same. For an interesting and valuable comment, see Sarah Hoyt's comments. Hoyt offers some sensible and constructive recommendations, as in:

Now go and do something that makes you want to live.

It sounds a little Rick Warren, but clearly having a purpose in your life will do you a world of good. If you don’t like Rick Warren consider it a version of Aristotelian teleology.

Clearly, going out to do something is a far better course than mulling it over, ruminating about it or imagining that it is going to be solved by taking a pill.

Naturally, celebrity suicide is inescapable. We want to say something about the ambient culture, and especially about the way the culture addresses the issue. And we certainly want to evaluate, as Benedict Carey at the New York Times and your humble blogger have done, what it tells us about the American mental health profession.

And yet, there comes a time when enough is enough, when we have heard enough cries of alarm. There comes a time when we should stop talking about it. This applies to me as much as it does to you.

It certainly applies to a strange Washington Post column written by Petula Dvorak.

Dvorak suggests that we do not talk about suicide enough. End the silence, she intones. Do more research. Remove the stigma surrounding suicide. At a time when the press is filled with reflections on suicide, most of which are frankly not very interesting, we have a Washington Post writer who trots out the conventional psycho wisdom… to the effect that if only we talk about it more, if only we remove the stigma, we will magically solve the problem.

At a time when, as Sarah Hoyt says, everyone is talking about suicide, it takes a newspaper columnist to claim that we do not talk about suicide enough.

We still live in a culture that believes that enhanced awareness will solve all problems. In truth, if you remove the stigma about suicide, the likelihood is… you will have more suicides. We have largely removed the stigma about suicide. We are pondering whether or not we should allow assisted suicide as medical treatment. Some Western European countries do so already. In Holland they allow assisted suicide as a treatment for depression. In Switzerland they have special clinics for those who wish to end it all.

If you normalize suicide and remove the stigma people will start thinking of it as a viable option. Some might even think of it as a Romantic option. Or as a way to rebel against the patriarchy or against capitalism. Remember Sylvia Plath.

Suicide has many causes. It has more than its share of facilitators. Among them the simple fact that in today’s America depression is treated as a biochemical problem, not as a function of pervasive anomie. Among them is the simpler fact that most therapists do not have the time or the inclination to converse with their patients. Some merely write prescriptions. Some think that they merely need to understand the root causes. Others refuse to engage with their patients on Freudian grounds. Others do not know how.

Anyway, we are constantly being told to feel compassion for those who commit suicide. We do not ask whether compassion helps or even when empathy helps. Our goal should not be to have the right feelings. Our goal should be to prevent. 

When a parent leaves children without a parent, perhaps we should also feel a tinge of anger at the utter irresponsibility of it all.