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Suicide in Adolescents: Warning Signs, Risk Factors, and What Parents Can Do to Support Their Teens
Suicidality can affect all age groups, including during the adolescent years (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2023). The CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (2023) reported data concerning U.S. high school students’...
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Preventing Suicide: Addressing Trauma-Related Symptoms in Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
The incidence of mental illness is pervasive in the United States, a recent estimate suggesting it impacts more than one in five adults (NIMH, 2023). While “mental illness” is a category that embodies all diagnoses, a subset of this category, serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia spectrum...
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Understanding and Detecting the Signs of Serious Mental Illness and Suicidal Ideation
Serious mental illness and suicidal ideation are two of the largest problems in American healthcare today. In fact, while one-in-five American adults have any mental illness, approximately 1 in 20 adults in the U.S. are affected by serious mental illness, or a mental illness that significantly...
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The Evolution of the 988 Lifeline: A Year After the Transition
On July 16, 2022, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline announced the transition of the former 1-800-273-TALK (8255) phone number to 988, an easy-to-remember three digit-number for 24/7 crisis care across the United States and its territories. A year after the transition, the 988 Suicide...
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Suicide Risk and Safety Planning
Behavioral health workers are understandably distressed by the recent rise in the rates of suicide, suicide attempts, and reported suicidal ideation, including increases among teens and young adults, minorities, and those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic (Molock et al, 2023; Pathirathna et al,...
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Black Men and Mental Health: Practical Solutions
It's no secret that black men face a unique set of circumstances in our world; economic, healthcare, and educational disparities, systemic racism, and social injustice. These factors create a world where it seems Black men's lives are rarely valued, much less their thoughts and feelings. This has...
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The Lens of Loss: Perspectives of Family Members Following Suicide Loss
When we think about the suicide of a loved one, we think of profound loss, of grief, of finding a way to endure amid unyielding pain. But we gain something in the aftermath, one nearly as burdensome. It is a new perspective: Loss becomes a lens through which life is lived. And it can be difficult...
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Families and Suicide: How to Engage Your Child in Conversation
As parents, we must balance our feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, on top of our own emotions with those of our children. There are many aspects to the relationship between suicide and families, especially having conversations to find out if children are thinking about suicide. Many parents are...
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You Don’t Have to Do this Alone: 988 Lifeline Offers Support for Loved Ones Concerned About Suicide
At a recent fund-raising event I attended for St. Vincent’s, CNN correspondent Randi Kaye was honored for her efforts to promote suicide prevention. In her acceptance remarks, she spoke about her family’s shock, disbelief and unanswered questions when her father died by suicide. She...
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The Silent Battlefront of Veteran Suicide and the Measures Being Taken to Help Them
On Friday, May 30th, 2014, I woke up to one of the most devastating phone calls I’ve ever received. My best friend for almost a decade, Joshua Drury, who was in his mid-thirties at the time, had taken his life. Joshua had served many years in the U.S. Army prior to our meeting. While he told us...
