Welcome to the 22nd WCP Congress Program Scheduling

Abstract Body

Suicide is a complex maze, wherein multiple parameters intersect: psychological, moral, religious, social, economic and political. The presentation questions many basic premises which have been taken as given in the discourse around suicide. An alternative perspective posits that suicide is a societal problem which has been expropriated by health professionals. They have assumed ownership without having the wherewithal to address the many factors contributing to rising suicide rates across the world. Suicide prevention plans continue to be ritually rolled out despite a consistent record of repeated failures. Suicide rates across jurisdictions and bear no relation to the availability of mental health resources, with countries with high psychiatrists-to-population ratios having similar or even higher suicide rates compared to low resource nations with much fewer psychiatrists. Suicide prevention plans fail because these psychosocial, moral, economic and political drivers are outside the remit of mental and public health professionals, and even beyond the control of national governments. Globalisation, driven by free-market economic philosophy beyond even that advocated by Adam Smith has unleashed the genie. We need to reimagine the subject in the light of macro-level evidence, to think inclusively rather than in a binary mode. Emile Durkheim’s seminal 19^th century work provides an alternative perspective. Solutions of convenience, like mobilising more mental and public health resources, is like looking for the lost penny under the lamp post. The focus should shift to promoting life-skills, robust coping strategies and resilience, beginning from the school-level to build up population-level ability to confront these real-life stressors.