For Dr Doree Ann Espiritu, asking troubled souls about suicidal intent is always a delicate moment. “There’s always a fear that if you ask about suicide, you are giving them [the patients] an idea about what they can do,” the Detroit-based psychiatrist says. “Almost giving them a hint about what they might do.
“If you are not used to this type of work, it is something that you dread as a psychiatrist,” Espiritu says. “Either you have already had one, or you will have one. It is [seen as] something that is unavoidable.”
But in practice the approach has had remarkable results. Tackling the taboo of suicide head on has led to an impressive turnaround in parts of the city. The programme Espiritu jointly oversees has attained such clinical success over the past 14 years that it is inspiring myriad copycat schemes, including in the UK.
[For more of this story, written by Rose Hackman, go to http://www.theguardian.com/soc...al-health-henry-ford]
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