Suicide Narratives from ideology to practical reality in community

Humane Clinic is pleased to bring a presentation and Q and A about the Suicide Narratives approach. In a moment when the International Suicide Prevention movement has named the importance of narratives and community being enough when a person in in distress, Humane Clinic wishes to be proactive in discussing what this might mean as a practical actions.

The suicide prevention industry often lacks the practicality to go with ideological headlines. Suicide Narratives can offer the practical to the ideology. The appraoch is not limited to professionals; it is a model for anyone in community.

Suicide Narratives is practiced in Australia and has been taught and offered internationally, noteably in acute psychiatric settings in London, in New Zealand and in communities in multiple destinations as the need for appraoches that teach practical application over social media headlines:

“There is evident need for an alternative approach. We can understand that a person who is suicidal is providing an important narrative and message to their community, representing a knowing of problems that exist between and within the community. The person in distress, through their experience of social and emotional conflict and woundedness, is the messenger of this knowing. This is the spirit in which Suicide Narratives approaches “healing through knowing” – SN 2020

Suicide Narratives has 4 components that are practical:

Immediate response

Just Listening
Ongoing response

Suicide Meaning Conversation
SN groups
Talking with Suicide
The Suicide Narratives approach included a Suicide narrative formulation that provide an alterntive to predictive risk assessment processes that have been continually demonstrated not to have any evidence in to support their value of ablity to predict risk.

Additionally, Suicide Narratives seeks to offer more than a crisis or immediate response, but also offers an ongoing reposnse when the crisis has passed.

The appraoch is non carceral and aknowledges the wisdom of the person in exploring all options when life feels unliveable.

This short presentation and Q and A will intorcude the components of Suicide Narrative alongside the philosophy of the approach that explicitly names suicide as a meaningful and potentially dissociative response to problems in our communities rather than bein a problem inside the person:

“In this process a person’s Suicide Narrative may identify an alternative formulation that places the origins of the suicidal experience not in ‘mental illness’ but rather in social and emotional wounds; adverse environments related to trauma, racism, cultural unsafety, spiritual crisis, poverty, isolation, negative operation of power, or any oppressive process that causes ongoing distress. In order to develop this understanding a new approach is needed, one that moves beyond a crisis when the crisis has passed” – SN 2020

We welcome anyone who would like to attend – community members of any part of the community including those who may have experience of suicide, professionals, academics, community members interested to feel confident to sit with another community member in distress… anyone with an interest.