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I did not say that you should not get professional help. You make it sound like it's the same as calling an ambulance for a physical medical emergency. It's not

by jules 11y ago

I did not say that you should not get professional help. You make it sound like it's the same as calling an ambulance for a physical medical emergency. It's not. Care needs to be taken in how to get that professional help, and the story does not end with seeking professional help. Don't "Your mind is dangerously ill. I've called these professionals to cure it." Such a response can immediately turn a person off seeking professional help, the exact opposite of what you hope to achieve. Do "You are in a difficult situation. Here's what I can do to help alleviate these circumstances, and maybe it's a good idea to get professional help to help you deal with this situation." It's always better to convince a person to seek help than to do it for them. Frame it as if the situation is at fault, and it's normal to have such difficulties in that situation and it's normal to require help for that. Do not frame it as a "psychological medical emergency" if you can at all avoid that. If the person does not want to get help you can always call professional help anyway.

tptacek 11y ago
I'm sorry if we're perhaps disagreeing pointlessly. So long as we're on the same page (as we may have been from the beginning) that significant suicidal impulses aren't something people should be talked out of by their friends, I'm not sure we have anything to productively disagree about. There are a variety of conditions that can make a person suicidal. Depression isn't the only one. In some of these cases, the resolution of the problem may involve changes to environment or circumstances. In others, the resolution might be chemical. In still others, prolonged inpatient treatment may be required in order to ensure safety. What's true in all cases is that the decisions about how to proceed in resolving the emergency should be made by people trained to do it. As you can see from many other comments n the thread, our intuition on how best to help suicidal friends and acquaintances are, at best, unreliable.

by jules 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

I'm sorry if we're perhaps disagreeing pointlessly. So long as we're on the same page (as we may have been from the beginning) that significant suicidal impulses aren't something people should be talked out of by their friends, I'm not sure we have anything to productively disagree about. There are a variety of conditions that can make a person suicidal. Depression isn't the only one. In some of these cases, the resolution of the problem may involve changes to environment or circumstances. In others, the resolution might be chemical. In still others, prolonged inpatient treatment may be required in order to ensure safety. What's true in all cases is that the decisions about how to proceed in resolving the emergency should be made by people trained to do it. As you can see from many other comments n the thread, our intuition on how best to help suicidal friends and acquaintances are, at best, unreliable.