This is Emergency Services as its Defined on a Community Services Boards' Web Site

Emergency Services/Crisis Counseling is a State mandated program. This unit provides short-term crisis counseling and referrals to individuals on an emergency basis. Emergency and crisis response services include: telephone interventions; face-to-face assessments and evaluation (including pre-admission screening); psychiatric consultation and other clinical consultation about mental health, substance abuse, and special populations which include children, adolescents, geriatric, people with mental retardation, and individuals involved in the forensic system. Emergency Services/Crisis Counseling is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Everything on this website has been thoroughly examined, reviewed, evaluated, and ultimately approved by The Citizens’ Committee for the Advancement of Rational Thought and Actions in Virginia's Mental Health System….


Things Sure Aren't What They Used to be..Conditions Sure Have Changed

coming soon........

Monday, July 30, 2007

So and So Tried to Kill Themselves......Is it a Cry for Help? Most Likely Not....

First, you need to define, tried to kill oneself?
Sadly, most of the poor folks who do want to kill themselves, well...they kill themselves. They normally don't call someone. It would also seem that if someone, for whatever reason, has decided that they are going to kill themselves, it may well be impossible to stop them.
Most of what is seen in the emergency rooms and most of what emergency services sees....and other folks in the community, counselors, fire fighters/paramedics, police and so on....at best are gestures. My small dictionary says in part, a gesture is...something said or done for its effect on the attitude of others.
We often say, So and so tried to kill themselves. It's a cry for help. Well, it might be, but it's most likely a cry to manipulate? What are you talking about? Good question.
Normally, the person who makes a gesture wants to bring attention to themselves. They want folks to know that everything isn't going like they'd like. Someone can be extremely depressed and this is their way of letting people know. Some people sadly, learn that a gesture is a way of getting attention and they do it over and over. That they do.
Many folks do it to try to manipulate. There's something in their environment that they want to change. Most likely 60/70% of gestures have a boy friend or girl friend element to it.
So and so just broke up and this is their way of trying to get the person back.
Sometimes the gestures are the equivalent of a magician's misdirection. Yes, the person is trying to move the focus from one place to another. As an example, let's say Fred, on the way home with his pay check, decided to blow it on crack. So, he gets home and his wife or girl friend is rightly...well, mad and so on. Sooooo, attempting to move his wife's ire from his bad behavior, he claims he's suicidal, rushes to an emergency room, lays up on a gurney, and hopes his wife will come by and feel sorry for him. And, so it goes.....
Posted by at