Saturday, November 05, 2005
Closure
It's the last day of suicide week, and the closer is Heidi Benson, possibly the dumbest yet.
In the late 1970s, two scientific studies concluded that survivors of suicide attempts from the Golden Gate Bridge do not "just go someplace else."
Dr. David Rosen, then of UCSF's department of psychiatry and Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, spent 2 1/2 years researching "Suicide Survivors," an in-depth study of six people who survived jumping from the bridge. The study was published in 1975.
Almost unanimously, the survivors said that their "will to live had taken over" after they survived the jump. "I was refilled with a new hope and purpose in being alive," said one. "Surviving reconfirmed my belief and purpose in my life," said another. Only one person in the study made a subsequent suicide attempt.
Well, yeah, if you're looking at people who actually jumped, they'll have a change of heart. But for it to be relevant to Heidi's point, you'd have to believe that the impact of jumping off a bridge and surviving and the impact of showing up and being disappointed that there's a fence are the same.
The bridge was taken into account by Dr. Herbert Hendin, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, in his 1984 book, "Suicide in America."
"Leaving the bridge without a protective fence seems to imply a social sanction for those who would jump," Hendin wrote.
"Similarly, failure to restrict access to guns and drugs conveys the message that we are willing to accept the consequences of their uncontrolled use. Our policy choices should provide clear statements that we do not encourage destructive and self-destructive behavior, and equally clear notice that we value constructive ways of dealing with the pain and rage life contains."
Well, Hendin's a fine little fascist, isn't he? Use policy to tell people what they can and can't do. God forbid we let people make their own decisions.
Each year, hundreds of thousands Americans survive suicide attempts.
Even after such a violent act, "it is possible not only to recover from being suicidal, but it is possible to lead a rich, fulfilled life afterward," Sonoma therapist [Richard Heckler] insists.
"During and after their recovery, people become spiritual in the most fundamentally important way -- they give back what they have learned," he says.
Once again, we see someone trying to assume that the consequences of trying and failing to kill yourself will apply to someone who didn't even get around to trying. What we really need is a way for people to try to commit suicide and fail. That might be more useful. Also, with a name like Heckler, he should totally be on our side on this issue.
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