No One Wants to Help Suicidal Kids, and I Was One
In honor of the book I’m working on, here's some of my personal story...
The relentless push towards evidence-based tools in psychiatry ignores a problem. It’s a big one, and the reason I’m writing a book. The problem is that there is a ton of social pressure telling clinicians not to risk helping people like who need it, with evidence-based tools. This pressure is so intense that it could make diamonds out of coal. We have every reason not to help. If you help really sick people, it puts your career in jeopardy. And that is too high-stakes for most physicians.
Our society has made a deal with the devil–abandon people suffering from suicidal ideation, so as to not have to think about it ourselves. We have created a cult of abdication of duty. We reliably scapegoat those who cross this particular river Styx. The helpers are not to be helped. Helping really sick people places a huge burden on psychiatrists, and we don’t help them with this burden. In this way, we are able to decry suicidality, and stand against death and…