PSYCHIATRIST CAUTIONS COVERAGE OF SUICIDES MAY BE PROBLEMATIC

The extensive use by media that cover adolescent suicides may push desperate young people to choose death as a solution to their pain. Dr. Stan Kutcher, professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University Medical School, has expressed concern about the wide media coverage of suicides like that of recent bullying victim, Amanda Todd. Dr. Kutcher claims that vulnerable young people who are suffering depression and contemplating death as a solution may be encouraged to choose death as a solution. “It’s important to understand that young people who are thinking of dying by suicide are very ambivalent about that decision. They usually agonize over this for weeks or months or longer. There’s a huge push and pull between the decision, should I take my life or should I choose life.” (Excerpt taken from the Chronicle Herald on October 19, 2012. (Read the article at: http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/150918-media-coverage-of-suicides-concerns-expert )