You're getting downvoted, but I am not sure that's really fair.

I've been thinking this topic today. I happened to lose a (young) family member to suicide a couple days ago and, shit, that bothers me immensely.

Every time the subject of suicide comes up the first thing that is said is "call the hotline," however, in the last couple days, I have been questioning if suicide hotlines are evidence based. I have zero idea if the topic even has been studied, or even if it could be studied. I wonder if our resources can and should be better allocated. I wonder if people are calling suicide helplines instead of calling their doctor.

Or even people are saying it just because it makes them feel good. Because preventing suicide is actually hard and telling someone to call a phone number is easy.

I'm just pondering right now, I have no answers.

Personal story: I called a suicide hotline once and it was extremely unhelpful. It was the opposite of helpful, it actually made things worse.

The Fremont bridge in Portland had a sign with a # for suicide hotline, and it was the wrong number I believe for over a decade. Only when a road crew maintenance guy had to take it down for repairs did somebody check. It wasn't even in the news, I just happen to talk to one of the workers who told me.

This got me curious, so I looked a few things up on pubmed. Here's some articles that piqued my interest:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24086443 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24163237 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22320194

I’m sorry for your loss. The same thing happened in my family. It gets better with time.

It gets better with time. I am not convinced that this is the case.

I can’t promise that it’s the same for everyone. But for me, the pain faded. Thinking about it still brings up some emotions, but so much else has happened since then that the loss is nowhere near the forefront of my mind.

God, they are worse than unhelpful. In Australia, if you call Lifeline from a mobile, even if you don’t disclose who you are they are will still call the police on you. This happened to me, and I specifically called to talk myself down to a third party who I believed would listen, and I would not have to deal with the consequences of not dealing with uncaring and ill-equiped authorities who will take you to a psych facility (read: uncaring ED) at best, or shoot or maim you at worst.

No such luck.

When the media adds the number for Lifeline it’s just lazy and backside covering. Hell, for a long time the media were so badly informed aboutvsuicide they wouldn’t even report on it.

So yeah, suicide hotlines are not only ineffective, they can be positive detrimental to your health.

That's awful, but the US suicide hotline doesn't do that, one of the only places that won't call the cops on someone seeking help, unless they state that they are immediately killing themselves.

https://www.reddit.com/comments/1c7ntr

If you already mid attempt, and yet you are also calling a helpline, in that case there's nearly no reason to complain if the cops come.

Do you know of something more effective for the same cost?

Sadly, both statements are true -

Call Centers are not particularly effective. It's also true that there aren't widely available good options.

It's a difficult situation, and the tools to address it are inadequate.

Posting an anonymous comment on Reddit? I don't know, at this point anything is as effective as that. I'm just tired of seeing these hotline numbers shared across all forms of media as if they were the solution to everything. Real therapy, as far as I know, is the only effective solution. There's no low cost solution other than maybe trying to form deeper relationships with the people around you.

It sounds like you do not know much about the topic, but still felt compelled to contradict the most common suicide prevention advice in a public forum while offering no evidence.

Maybe not a great thing to do on a high-traffic website on the day of a high-profile suicide.

> not a great thing to do on a high-traffic website on the day of a high-profile suicide.

It's the only time people seem willing to discuss suicide. A week from now everyone will have forgotten that suicide is a real epidemic. I'd rather see people discuss real solutions instead be of endlessly repeating the same pointless things.

And I think people, including the person you responded to, would be open to that discussion if you had in any way supported your arguments with facts. If you want to propose "real solutions" provide some supporting evidence for why suicide hotlines do not provide good value for cost and what alternatives do.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is scientifically proven to work. Basically any CBT book on amazon on the subject, look for best sellers, read reviews - $3.99 plus $1.99 shipping is your cost. Another book, The Power of Now I personally recommend. Everything else you need is in the KJV.

KJV?

Has self-directed CBT actually been studied?

Yes, most of the books start off listing the studies and the results. I seem to remember the best seller one, Feeling Good, actually goes into the history and discovery, including the actual tests and results incrementally, although I don't have my copy immediately available. When I say scientifically proven, I mean it. If it doesn't work, the researchers would honestly like to learn about your situation and why it didn't work.

You didn't answer the question. Were these studies done on people who were self directed? "here's the book, have fun, we'll follow up in a year."

As far as I understand most people receiving CBT who have been studied have received it in a professional setting with weekly meetings.

Yes, I did. CBT is done self directed. In a professional setting with somebody is possible, but it is more like giving you homework. I have never been to a group or "professional" In the studies (I believe to be in Feeling Good but it could have been in a dozen other books I read) they split up groups an gave CBT training to one and the other one was a control. However, getting to that study there were a series of other studies of ideas (which had to be changed because of the results) that lead up to CBT. I seem to remember the author talking about going to conferences and how they changed their ideas as they broke down what the models.

Then yes, there was actually a study of the book Feeling Good (kind of meta), and told to read it with a checkup every 6 weeks just like you guessed it in the quote. There are other CBT books that are smaller and to the point, more tactical approach to learning the methods (I think one is called Learning CBT) of Feeling Good. The second half of Feeling Good goes into drugs, which at the time was written no long term studies had been done or possible. From my personal research, these drugs do not work and cause more damage then good. I have found that through suffering and depression, and then working my way out of it, I believe I am better off then just taking a drug. I feel they are supressing some kind of natural force that is needed to build character, but for some people they are needed as a "backstop" to get out of a hole. On another note, depression has grown several folds since the introduction of antidepressants. I do not even consider that there is actually a thing as a drug that can do what they claim, but that's my personal belief.

King James Version.

Sure but they make people feel good about themselves when they post them. Much like "liking" a Facebook post as a form of activism.