Suicide hotlines are pretty ineffective as far as suicide prevention goes.
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.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24086443 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24163237 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22320194
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.
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.
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.
Maybe 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.
Has self-directed CBT actually been studied?
As far as I understand most people receiving CBT who have been studied have received it in a professional setting with weekly meetings.
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.