Page 8 - 2024 Intuition, Imagination and Innovation in Suicidology Conference

Conference Is Suicide Prevention Destined to Stagnate?

Yes, Unless ...

Suicidology Invited lecture · Heidi Hjelmeland

Prof. Heidi Hjelmeland works at the Norwegian University of Science and Tech-

th. Her extensive research portfolio covers a variety of cultural contexts in seve-
in nology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Mental Heal-
Innovation the framework of Critical Suicide Studies and focuses on topics such as meaning,
ral European and African countries. Currently, her academic work is anchored in
communication, gender, culture, context, intervention and prevention as well as
theoretical and methodological issues.

and Abstract. ... the field undergoes radical changes in terms of how suicide/sui-
cidality is understood and researched, which, in turn, have implications for
how we attempt to prevent suicide. I will start by taking a critical look at
Imagination the current ‘regime of truth’ (Marsh, 2010), which is dominated by three ba-

sic assumptions: (1) Suicide is pathological; (2) Suicide is individual; and (3)
Suicidology is science (Marsh, 2016), with inherent consequences for suicide
prevention. I will point out some of the problems with all these assumptions.
Moreover, we need to accept that suicide is complex way beyond being ‘mul-
Intuition, tifactorial,’ as in adding together risk factors in more or less complex expla-
natory models, and I will present a different way of understanding causality
and complexity in relation to suicide. I will also argue that most of what cur-
rently is referred to as suicide prevention actually is intervention requiring
2024 professionals to intervene. The potential for improved suicide prevention li-
es in understanding that all suffering has its basis in people’s life history; a
life history deeply anchored in numerous interwoven relations to other peo-
ple, which, in turn, are intertwined with overall social, cultural, economic, and
political systems, together constituting a complex dynamic context. Thus, to
become better at preventing suicide, we need to move towards genuine pre-
vention, so that everybody, as fellow human beings and/or parts of various
‘systems,’ really can contribute to prevent suicide. Then, we need to acquire
and disseminate knowledge about how suicidality, as a complex contextual
and relational phenomenon, may develop through people’s life histories, in
context. All in all, I argue for the need of a paradigm shift in this field, which,
in fact, might already be underway, albeit to fierce resistance from people in
powerful positions.

8 https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-354-8.1