Social Justice

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Critical Suicidology -- Why Our Traditional Approaches in Suicide Prevention Have Failed: Interview with Jess Stohlmann-Rainey | Episode 72

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Critical Suicidology -- Why Our Traditional Approaches in Suicide Prevention Have Failed: Interview with Jess Stohlmann-Rainey | Episode 72

Critical suicidology is an emerging area of scholarship and advocacy that brings together expertise from diverse perspectives to re-examine all that we have believed to be “true” about suicide prevention. Critical suicidologists question the highly medicalized framework of understanding a suicidal person and see suicide in context by understanding how other frameworks — like social justice — expand our imagination on what is possible in prevention, intervention and postvention.

In this conversation with Jess Stohlmann-Rainey, we talk about the ways traditional efforts in suicide prevention have failed us including:

  • Forced treatment

  • Fear-based approaches of restraint and isolation

  • Trying to predict suicide risk

And instead explore alternative, creative and upstream approaches to suicide prevention such as transformative justice work, mutual aid peer support, and accountability in making reparations for histories of harm done to communities.

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Human Rights and Mental Health -- Justice Speaks: Interview with Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren | Episode 64

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Human Rights and Mental Health -- Justice Speaks: Interview with Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren | Episode 64

In this episode, Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren and I talk about a human rights approach to mental health promotion. She shares her insights from the bench of the Mental Health Court she oversees. Come take a listen to her story of her journey as she worked to develop a dignified, trauma-informed and humanistic approach for people who have been criminalized due to their serious mental health condition.

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How to Fight Soul Exhaustion -- Soul Care During Difficult Times: Interview with Sarah Gaer | Episode 58

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How to Fight Soul Exhaustion -- Soul Care During Difficult Times: Interview with Sarah Gaer | Episode 58

When we are in crisis we find ourselves constantly drained by the urgent and important things in our life that demand our attention. Should we get a moment of reprieve, we often succumb to the desire to escape by engaging in something that numbs us out. In this podcast we talk about making time for spiritual wellness during difficult times. My guest, suicide prevention specialist and community trauma responder Sarah Gaer, gives us some concrete ideas on how we can tend to our souls when our world seems like it’s falling down around us.

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Suicide and Culture -- Arts, Religion and Social Justice: Interview with Dr. Erminia Colucci | Episode 44

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Suicide and Culture -- Arts, Religion and Social Justice: Interview with Dr. Erminia Colucci | Episode 44

In the United States our suicide rates are going up,  but in much of the world, the suicide rates are going down. In this interview I speak with the world renowned Erminia Colucci to discuss the Anglo perspective of a highly medicalized perspective of suicide and contrast that with an understanding of suicide in a larger context. In her view, we must situate suicide prevention within a social, cultural and political context to be effective. She is part of a group of “Critical Suicidologists” who are challenging some of the “truths” we have accepted within the suicide prevention field. As an activist researcher she wants to engage with the community and helps us better to understand the root causes of inequality, oppression, violence and related conditions of human suffering. 

Erminia and I have this conversation at the World Congress for Suicide Prevention in Derry, Ireland. We are sitting in an art studio in the Playhouse for this conversation, and explore a ‘different way’ to help people on their darkest day. 

Take aways:

  1. Suicide needs to be seen in a larger context within the cultures people belong to

  2. We need to break the silence in some areas of understanding suicide like social justice

  3. By exploring alternative methods that work for people, like the arts, faith, and others, we can make a difference to alleviate suffering and prevent suicide.