The document discusses how the media talks about suicide and other difficult topics. It argues that the media should broaden its approach beyond just stories directly about suicide, and should embrace a kinder, more compassionate way of discussing trauma, mistakes, failure and success that is less judgemental and reflects the realities of human experience. Broadening the focus this way could help shift societal values and norms in a way that is less psychologically harmful and more supportive of mental health.

1. SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT SUICIDE IN THE MEDIA?
Adapted from a presentation given at the CRESP Suicide Summit, August 10th
2015, Canberra, by
Dr Jocelyn Lowinger
Should we talk about suicide in the media? Yes – absolutely. And of course we need to do so
safely. We are rightly concerned about the effect reading about suicide may have on someone
who is at a vulnerable moment in their life. So I applaud the Mindframe guidelines. But I think we
need to look a lot more broadly than stories that directly focus on suicide.
We tend to assume that people who are vulnerable are only reading articles with the “S” word in
them, and these are the only types of articles that may trigger them. But that’s not true. Images
and description of all sorts of atrocities, murders and massacres are very explicit. How triggering is
that? Then there's the way we talk about mistakes and failures. Losing the Ashes caused us
“national embarrassment”, was “utter humiliation” and caused by “staggering ineptitude”. If we
treat people in the public eye this way, how do we treat ourselves when we fail? How does this
type of persistently harsh and negative judgement impact on us?
And we idolise success in a way that can be problematic for those in pain. Recently a small
business owner told me how during the collapse of her business during the GFC she had to stop
reading articles about business “success” people because they just magnified her sense of failure.
So if we really want to take a person centred approach to talking about suicide in the media, we
need to embrace the Mindframe approach, but broaden its way out to focus on the language we
use and the underlying societal values we reflect across all types of stories.
So here’s my vision:
I’d love to see the media help lead a dramatic paradigm shift in the way we talk about trauma,
pain, mistakes and failure. That would mean publishing stories with a kinder eye built on
underlying assumptions that better reflect the truth of things. That means stories built on the truth
that psychological pain is inevitable… its part of life and very, very human. There is no shame in
tears. As Viktor Frankl says in “Man’s Search for Meaning”, pain has meaning – it’s about what we
owe life rather than what life owes us. (He used this strategy to successfully prevent suicide in the
concentration camps.)
It means stories built on the principle that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback and
learning. All of us will make mistakes. Our true heroism lies in the recovery from mistakes – not in
being immune from them. And it means stories that show the struggle behind dazzling success.
It’s the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal that is truly worth celebrating and that brings
meaning, purpose and hope. How will we know when this is happening? When we see stories
about mistakes and failure that play to our kindness, compassion and admiration rather than to our
contempt.
Can you imagine what Facebook (as a reflection of our world) would look like then?