I am inclined to think that interventions that stem from people’s statements on social media should have a light touch that provides the suicidal individual the means to reach out and get help.
A heavier hand, although perhaps more immediately effective in suicide prevention, may very quickly lose its value because it will likely deter people from reaching out and expressing their thoughts. If people are concerned that their communications can be used to confine or institutionalize them, they probably will just keep to themselves and their state of misery will worsen.
I am inclined to think similarly regarding confidentiality in the psychotherapist context even with a suicidal/homicidal patient. Attempts to use these contexts to disempower people, even when doing so might seem to make sense, will ultimately just dilute these tools and make us less effective at helping.
This is a good point. The Belfort et al. paper mentioned above implies that, among adolescents admitted to a certain psychiatric emergency room due to suicide concerns in 2012, at least 1% presented to the emergency room because, after communicating with a peer electronically, that peer “shared information with an adult or encouraged access to care,” which suggests there’s a fair bit of informal suicide prevention being done online that could potentially be disrupted by the knowledge of an automated service (though I guess texts also fall under “electronic means”).
I am inclined to think that interventions that stem from people’s statements on social media should have a light touch that provides the suicidal individual the means to reach out and get help.
A heavier hand, although perhaps more immediately effective in suicide prevention, may very quickly lose its value because it will likely deter people from reaching out and expressing their thoughts. If people are concerned that their communications can be used to confine or institutionalize them, they probably will just keep to themselves and their state of misery will worsen.
I am inclined to think similarly regarding confidentiality in the psychotherapist context even with a suicidal/homicidal patient. Attempts to use these contexts to disempower people, even when doing so might seem to make sense, will ultimately just dilute these tools and make us less effective at helping.
This is a good point. The Belfort et al. paper mentioned above implies that, among adolescents admitted to a certain psychiatric emergency room due to suicide concerns in 2012, at least 1% presented to the emergency room because, after communicating with a peer electronically, that peer “shared information with an adult or encouraged access to care,” which suggests there’s a fair bit of informal suicide prevention being done online that could potentially be disrupted by the knowledge of an automated service (though I guess texts also fall under “electronic means”).