Life, Canaries and Suicide Prevention: The Power of Leaders Sharing Lived Experience
Speaker(s)
Many behavioral health professionals have lived experience with suicide, addiction and mental illness. The behavioral health and suicide prevention field has varying degrees of acceptance of open discussion of providers’ own experiences around suicide and behavioral health history. Some studies report lived experience is a motivating factor to enter the helping professions, that mental health professionals experience significantly higher rates of mood disorders, substance use disorders and suicide attempts BUT most providers do not feel safe discussing this, fearing prejudice, discrimination and rejection. In fact, the amount of research on prevalence of mental illness in providers is … well, surprisingly thin. Dr. Andrews will review some of the literature base on prevalence of lived experience- the results are surprising. One study showed up to 19% of doctors level graduate students reported past experience with suicide thoughts. The lack of research around the prevalence of mental illness and suicide experience is an indication of taboo strength. We expect the persons we are serving to freely disclose their own fight with mental illness, suicide and substance use and yet are reluctant to publicly share our own experience. There are leaders in our field, including Cheryl Sharp with the National Council and Dr. Marsha Linehan who have freely disclosed their lived experience. These courageous women had an impact on me and laid the ground work for me to tell my own story of lived experience. Dr. Andrews will tell his story of suicide and recovery and how he decided to share his experience with colleagues and other professionals. He will provide examples of challenges he experienced early in recovery, the impact of low acceptance among professionals and the process of re-telling his story after he had achieved professional success. He will review current challenges involved in our reliance on the word “stigma” and need to create a more specific and intentional language around prejudice against persons with lived experience and a renewed emphasis on positive and person centered language. He will also discuss the power of leaders stepping forward to share their lived experience. Yes, we need more research on how to prevent suicide. We also need to change the culture around how we provide suicide prevention services, and that has to start with us. There is an “us-them” dynamic at play in our current suicide prevention efforts, and it is holding us back. There are even leaders in our field who openly discount the role of lived experience in learning more and improving our suicide prevention efforts. It is time for this to change. Leaders with lived experience must be canaries, we must tell our story in the fresh air, so others, our peers, our team members and our clients can see that we walk the walk and just don’t talk the talk. Not only will this change our culture, it will save lives.