I listened to a Coaching session yesterday where a person who said they were feeling suicidal and had ‘tried to’ commit suicide were ultimately supported well. Suicide is a massive issue particularly here in New Zealand. Unfortunately when someone does actually commit suicide that is the actual end. I have come across people who have actually genuinely tried to kill themselves and in fact been disappointed that they have failed. I feel there is another group though here we can help by giving some reframe though.

The dialogue gave a really supportive reframe to the client who said that they had ‘attempted suicide’. The highly skilled Coach was able to reflect back to them the empowerment in what they had actually done. The person had not actually fully wanted to die since if they really had then the actual attempt would have involved taking numerous more bottles of pills and they would not have been vomitting and thrashing around as they described if on the deepest level they had not wanted to be here. On a deeper level an occurrence was taking place showing that life was wanted.

The reframe was given that what had actually taken place was an action out of deperation to be able to get empathy and connection which is such a deep rooted human need. The person on the whole level while feeling in a very low state did not actually fully want to be dead but in fact really wanted to live and following the action had in fact now successfully created a situation where they were being listened to and were therefore getting empathy. So the question then turned to … so where to from here ?

I think that anyone in such a low state to actually take this type of action has to be taken incredibly seriously. What I think too though is that often we can get very caught up in looking at a potential problem and potentially making it larger rather than maybe looking at what is actually occuring and giving the most accurate framing back as a reflection.

In the case of issues like this I feel it’s important to really look at what has actually occurred. If we think that any success is 20% strategy and 80 % psychology we could say in the case of taking ones life the actual strategy is pretty straightforward so it’s important in my view while treating very senstively that we draw attention to a big part of the psychology that is actually taking place which actually really wants to live in these actions.

Someone like Robin Williams no doubt truly wanted to be dead. If in these cases though if it isn’t reflected on as a disappointing failure then what part of the person really wants to live ? What are they looking for on the deepest level ? They’ve now got the attention and empathy so how can we help to make things better than they were before ?

I feel this is something we can do well to bring out more in any one who is operating at this level in order to be supportive and give them what they need to grow.