I volunteer at one (working at software doesn't provide enough meaning as far as activities go, and this does, as a side thing), and we are very strict about not forcing advice (or rescue) on anyone. (I had to go through multi-month trainings, practice, then supervision etc., we have ongoing seminars and equivalent of QA, etc.) The primary goal is provide emotional support and to give the caller a safe space where they can be heard, openly express and talk about their feelings and thoughts. We are there expressly not to solve any issues they are having. If they need it and consent to it and give an address (the calls are anonymous), we can call an ambulance; but even then the preference is if the caller does that.
I can tell (with some statistics and also lots of feedback) that the support does address the callers' emotional needs to be heard (sometimes to organise thoughts, understand their emotions, to speak to a real human and feel less lonely, etc.)
I am extremely glad good ones exist. If you have a list, I’ll share it with my support group.
Edit: removed my horror story… we don’t need another one on this thread.
> The organization’s hotline does not engage in non-consensual active rescue,[15] meaning operators never call 911, police, or emergency services on callers without an expressed request and consent, based on research associating involuntary hospitalization with increases suicide attempts after discharge.[16][17] Additionally, they believe that calling the police on transgender people in crisis, particularly trans people of color, causes more harm.
This isn’t to dismiss those who’ve had bad experiences. I just wanted to offer a different perspective.
This means that, while your experience totally sucked, it can't be generalized. Most people I've talked to from all over the country genuinely want to help. I assume it's the same in the US. But some centers offer very little training, and their legal means probably vary a lot by location.
That said, there is a lot they can do beyond calling an ambulance, but it still comes down to talking and guidance, no one can physically force people to get better, except maybe some institutions (debatable).
The fundamental purpose of suicide hotlines is to take burden off emergency services, and to give folks a coping mechanism which doesn't involve 911.
90% of callers are frequent fliers, calling weekly to daily. In the year I worked there I only had 2-3 calls which required serious treatment.
Kind of how old church ladies used to tell you they will pray for your immortal soul to not end in hell.
I have a feeling that those two groups are related in the biological sense.
They don't have a PhD. They are not top 1% intelligence, top 1% compassion and top 1% drive to help others. They are just people who applied for a job, got it and are following a script or whatever little training they've been given.
When you're younger, you think there's adults who know a thing or two. Then you grow up and realize that's 0.0001% of the population. Everyone else knows how to do a couple of repetitive tasks and repeat sentences they heard other people say, not much more than that.
The best thing I've heard though is that there is a large subset of suicides that are spur of the moment decisions. And so an option like a suicide prevention hotline is to serve as a distraction and circuit breaker to get the afflicted human onto something else. That also means there is no use case where you call the hotline on someone's behalf.
So then you go to a therapist and they're like "You have to want to change".
I don't know about that. I used to have friends. I don't want to change, I want to have friends again!
Considering how much therapy costs, I've joked about just hiring prostitutes to be my friends for hourly pay. Why can't the gig economy meet that demand, huh? I'll pay $15 an hour to share my opinions on Linux with another trans girl while she pretends to listen. That's an entire work shift for the price of 1 hour of therapy!
If you talk to escorts a surprisingly large chunk of their clientele does exactly that. That said $15 is no where near enough to have to listen to someone talk about how great Arch is.
This is 100% untrue. Their objective is to prevent suicide. If you intend to harm yourself, and nobody is around to make you safe, yes, they bring people in to enforce safety and yes that is often law enforcement. They will take the suicidal person to an ER, where the ER staff will do an assessment, and then may opt to put you in an involuntary hold if a licensed psychiatric provider deems it is necessary. But it is more likely that even if you do need hospitalization, they will recommend a voluntary hospital stay. Most care providers look to give people the least restrictive care that still gets the job done.
It is also important to note that you called on behalf of friends but refused to give out any info. There is very little they can do in that case. You are not the one at risk. You do not control the environment of the one at risk. You won't tell them who is at risk. I can understand why they got frustrated. I can also understand why you are frustrated. But none of those frustrations make your assertion true.
>"Data science and AI are at the heart of the organization — ensuring, it says, that those in the highest-stakes situations wait no more than 30 seconds before they start messaging with one of its thousands of volunteer counselors[...]"
>"Others questioned whether the people who text their pleas for help are actually consenting to having their data shared, despite the approximately 50-paragraph disclosure the helpline offers a link to when individuals first reach out."
They better start offering a speedreading course together with their suicide prevention service because otherwise that's hard to reconcile. In all seriousness, milking suicide prevention data in any shape or form to make more money, can we go any lower? There is only one legitimate way to handle data here, for law enforcement or medical professionals, otherwise delete it.
> can we go any lower?
They can always offer estate planning services right there in the chat. I bet some lawyers would jump on this ad placement opportunity.
> There is only one legitimate way to handle data here, for law enforcement or medical professionals, otherwise delete it.
What about research? It would be hard to navigate and share it responsibly even with research facilities, but it is a very legitimate use case and potentially useful.
How's that legally done?
Is suicide even a crime in most countries? I don't think it is.
In NZ I do know the cops like to kick you when you're down. Let's say you've climbed a scaffold that's around a building and you want to jump but you are saved (as you had been on the phone with a suicide help line, and they passed the details to the Police), you get done with a trespass charge and can be convicted. I really hate reading stories like this - way to kick someone while they're at rock bottom, potentially making them actually do it so they don't have to go to court, get publicly shamed and potentially getting a criminal record.
In Western Christian countries, there are recorded cases of people who attempted suicide unsuccessfully being brought before the court, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging. Reality here seems more like an extremely dark monty python sketch.
Some Western cultures also buried victims of suicide at public crossroads, a little like the bodies of murderers would be intentionally made spectacles. One view of this an explicit attempt to make it harder for their spirits to find their eternal resting places.
I cannot recall if it was in Alvarez' book where I learned it, but in my research I gathered that among some Iwi (Maori tribes) there was a culture of burying members who had killed themselves just outside the walls of their Marae (Meeting-house grounds), where their resting places would be trampled over as a sign of disrespect and societal rejection.
Even today, we see something of this view in institutions like universities etc, whose response to suicidal issues is often one that makes that persons life harder, eg communicating to a suicidal student that any further attempt on their life will result in them being expelled from their study program. I feel like for people on the receiving end, the 'message' being communicated here is one of rejection, and the threat of humiliation following any subsequent unsuccessful attempt.
In that movie as well, Rosamund’s character got old people institutionalised by making bogus reports from a doctor and sold off their property. I didn’t really like the movie but I thought it was kind of unrealistic that the government could really do such a thing (as her character explains the state can step in and essentially put a person in rehab/old age care center if they are given evidence that the person is “unstable”. Rosamund’s character played the system by manipulating the courts). I thought that part was unrealistic but I guess I was wrong.
Shocking, I know.
If you want to get someone to listen to your problems without telling them to anyone you can't do better than the catholic church:
>Priests may not reveal what they have learned during confession to anyone, even under the threat of their own death or that of others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_of_confession_in_the_Cath...
Ironically enough the apparatchiks of the Communist Party of Poland would often use uncorruptible priests to vent. Ones they had used the secret service to vet by entrapping them.
I suppose you can probably find a priest that is willing to talk but that may take some time and eventually they are going to start cold shouldering you if you don't join the church.
https://www.theverge.com/21293176/crisis-text-line-ceo-racis...
Clearly people contacting them are in a state of distress. I bet none of them read that, and many would not be considered legally able to agree to the terms due to their mental state. But IANAL
I think what's mostly lacking though is an intermediate in-person program that's pre-psychiatric ward, an intensive-supportive environment, where the go-to isn't medications - probably where medications aren't prescribed - but basically in-person to determine a person's full state, and see what amount of short-term and/or long-term care they need to feel stable enough, if not good, on their own again. This requires money of course, and the sooner we can get people into these programs then the less dis-ease progression occurs, and arguably people will be easier to help.
Does anyone know of any such program or protocol, where care/treatment cascades and/or escalates and/or continues in-person in wide variety of breadth and depth depending on each person? I feel the current go-to with medications is generally that the medications are a hammer, so everything looks like a nail, but if multi-disciplinary teams (not just a psychiatrist trained in medication) rallied around a person and they had a whole toolkit worth of options then outcomes would be magnitudes better - and without causing additional harm.
It's literally a nonprofit. If they earn a profit or facilitate some other profit earning enterprise it is unethical, by definition. In a just world it would also be illegal and prosecuted.
Not to mention that they've said that Loris hasn't reached the contractual threshold to actually pay any money to CTL yet...
Edit: Even if it is CTL taking all of the profits from Loris I would consider that unethical without clearly informing everyone involved of how the data from the interaction would be used, and a 50 paragraph privacy statement doesn't count as "clear"
