Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Depressed? Your barber could help!

When one’s near and dear fail to understand the trauma one’s going through, could a hairdresser or a taxi driver help deal with the stress and get suicide off their mind?

In India, one person commits suicide every eight hours and half of them are in the age bracket of 20 to 45. The highest suicide rates in the world are in South India, where 50,000 cases are reported every year, with the total cases in India being 1,54,000! Bengaluru is India’s suicide capital where 35 in every 1,00,000 people commit suicide! These figures are increasing at an alarming rate and most of the people committing suicide are the breadwinners of the family.

One of the methods of preventing suicide is to simply listen to a depressed person. Dr. Vimal Kumar, a psychiatrist, says, “Most of these people express their desire to talk and we should not take it lightly. If you don’t have a solution, take the person to a professional or to someone on whom the person has some kind of confidence. Majority of patients who are about to commit suicide indicate a day or two before. The most common myth is that those who talk about suicide don’t commit suicide, which is really unfortunate.”

Belfast, in UK, witnessed 30 suicide cases in a period of six-weeks this summer. Now, from the hairdressers and taxi drivers to the Marks & Spencer staff, all are being trained to spot people who might be contemplating suicide and are being given basic counselling skills. This is done because it is believed that people, who might be thinking of taking their lives, are more comfortable talking to complete strangers rather than their families or friends.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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