Reporting suicide: Chief Coroner wants rules relaxed

13 Aug 2010 05:23p.m.

Davyd wrote:

Ryan not all professionals working in mental health support the suppression of talking about suicide. People in general need to know that feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts are more common than those experiencing them think. This is to help destigmatise these thoughts to make asking for help more acceptable. This leads to the need to improve access to the help. The only thing not needed is media attention that engrandises suicide.

13 Aug 2010 01:20a.m.

Ryan wrote:

This is a catch 22 situation. It's the psychologists and mental health professionals and researchers that are the ones mainly requesting this supression - and I assure you it is done with a heavy heart, and not out of any sense of "shame" - as a scientist the suppression of information goes against the grain. In an ideal world we would like suicide to be an openly discussed issue (though in an "ideal world" - it wouldn't be a problem) - and we try to do that under the radar, however it is a simple fact that the more suicide is discussed and reported in the media - the more suicides occur. This includes fictional pop media - if Shortland Street has a story in which someone kills themselves - then we see a spike in suicide rates. While I don't like the supression of information, exactly how does reporting suicide in the media actually help those who are vulnerable? The truth is we can do our best work if suicide is kept out of public media - yet someone let those who are at risk of the various counselling services available (through more indirect advertisments and getting school counsellors and medical professionals to keep an eye out for those vulnerable). Which again is a bit of a catch 22. Another issue is that we require public funding - yet if it's not a public issue the Government often don't care - as there are no votes to be had. However to proponents of law change - I'd ask that you consider carefully why you want suicide reporting to be more prevalent - for those that need the help, those that just want to know, or for those who simply beleive they are entitiled to feel outraged - if little is being done, or less guilty - if plenty is being done. Quite frankly your outrage or guilt, or morbid fascination is (and should be) the least of our concerns.

12 Aug 2010 07:33p.m.

Sue wrote:

If what we know from research is that the reporting of suicide leads to and increase in suicide, from copycatting or whatever happens, why would we want to go against the existing rulings? Doesn't make sense!

12 Aug 2010 07:25p.m.

Jim & Sarah Harper wrote:

The prevalence of suicide is a very clear performance indicator covering the design and delivery of any nation's mental health services.

In New Zealand these services are the overall specific responsibility of the Ministry of Health. Maybe not surprising then that the Ministry, with media assistance, has fiercely suppressed information and informed public debate about suicides for at least two decades.

We have a cultural compact of silence on this issue.

Suicides, as people "disappear" in New Zealand and their unacknowledged lives feed the derogatory and uninformed comment about :"losers", "cowards"...which they are not.

Suicide was a crime in Colonial New Zealand. Has it been effectively and subtly recriminalised? This keeps family sorrow and shame ever present.

We hope we never see practices such as reported in some US schools where school administrators have Photoshopped or airbushed out images of suicides from school publications and photos. And in particular images of sports heros or apparently otherwise successful young people.

Finally,a quote from Ulysses; James Joyce (p120 Paladin): When Bloom - whose father committed the "great disgrace" - listens to the righteously ignorant discussing the subject and claiming "the man who does it is a coward" he finally says quietly, about anyone who commits suicide...."They used to drive a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken already".