Much of what we know about suicide focuses on risk: the experiences, circumstances and psychological factors that can make someone more vulnerable to suicidal distress.
But understanding risk is only part of the picture.
We also need to understand what stops men from dying – the relationships, beliefs, fears, responsibilities, coping strategies and connections to life that can keep someone alive even when they are experiencing intense suicidal pain.
“I still hope to find someone who will change my life with love.”
This global study explores the reasons men who are suicidal give for staying alive, and what those experiences might teach us about more effective suicide prevention.
What are we doing?
- Men with experience of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts from 65 countries took part in the research.
- We used a mixed-methods approach, combining a recognised measure of reasons for living with an open-ended question asking men what else was important in preventing them from dying by suicide.
- Our anaylsis looks not only at established protective factors – such as family, children, coping beliefs and fear of death – but also at what men describe, in their own words, as helping to keep them connected to life.
WHY THIS work MATTERS
Understanding what keeps a man alive can help us understand how to strengthen the things that anchor men to life: connection to others, connection to self, purpose, hope, ways of regulating pain and the belief that life can still change.
Ultimately, we want to use these findings to help develop support that does more than prevent death in the immediate moment.
We want to understand what helps men find reasons to keep living.
“A stubborn will to outlast the darkness, to white knuckle my way past the storms of depression. And when will fails… hold on.”
STAY UP TO DATE WITH OUR FINDINGS.
We send out occasional emails to let you know when new research papers are published, events are happening and the progress made from our action projects.