Article Link:
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/how-to-help-someone-who-is-suicidal/There's nothing to debate about this one, but I wanted to share this insightful and fascinating article about how suicides dropped dramatically when their doctors/psychologists regularly kept up with them outside the office, even if it was just a few sentences every few weeks. What I got from it is that the messages help them feel like they're cared about, so they're less likely to try to commit suicide again. This is important though because suicide rates are skyrocketing in America...more people now die from suicide than homicide, and it's important that we look into ways to help that are low-cost and effective. This is a very basic summary, if you're at all interested in the topics of psychology or suicide in general you should give the article a read.
Some of the letters that were actually effective in the initial study back in the 60s:
"This is just a note to assure you of our continuing interest in how you are getting along."
"Just a note to say that we hope things are going well, as we remain interested in your well being. Drop us a line anytime you like."
"We realize that receiving a letter periodically expressing our interest in how things are going may seem a bit routine. However, we continue to be interested in you and how you are doing. We hope that our brief notes will be one way of expressing this."
That's all it took to save some lives.
