Resilience key to lowering suicide

Sometimes when Andrew Fuller works with despairing teenagers, he agrees that the life they’ve created isn’t enough for them to live in.

But ending it isn’t the only option, the Australian clinical psychologist says – they can reinvent it.

‘‘How long can we work with you?’’ he asks.

‘‘Kids are usually pretty honest. They’ll say ‘you’ve got a couple of weeks’. Okay, I’ll try and do it in a couple of weeks.’’

New Zealand’s suicide statistics recently reached their highest-ever level, with 685 people ending their lives in the year to June 30.

Overall, there were 17 more deaths than in the previous year.

The number of deaths in the 15 to 19-year-old age group increased by 20 over the same period, to 73.

Fuller started his career working in psychiatric crisis teams, which led to more than 35 years looking into resilience – one of his focus points at a Hamilton speaking engagement recently.

‘‘I define [resilience] as the happy knack of being able to bungy jump through the pitfalls of life,’’ he told a crowd at Hamilton’s St Paul’s Collegiate School.

He also compared life to a pack of dried spaghetti – it looks nice and neat, but apply some pressure and it can end in a tangled mess.

Developing resilience once won’t cover you for life, Fuller said, you need to keep adjusting for different challenges.

Factors which help are connections with other people, protecting each other and feeling safe, and respect, he said.

‘‘It’s only when you’re in that resilient zone that you can learn something new,’’ he said.

People who know how to get themselves – and others – back into the resilient zone tend to be more successful, he said.

Fuller said some kids come to him with a world weariness on their shoulders at too young an age, and a lack of hope.

‘‘Are the pressures that we’re putting on our kids worthwhile, in that case?

‘‘And I don’t think that they are,’’ he told Stuff.

There’s a sense that everyone should fit in and be popular, and a narrowing definition of success which focuses on the academic.

It takes a skill to work through a new direction for a suicidal teenager, he said, so good therapy is needed.

Anxiety is another huge factor, Fuller said – referring to a study which found schoolkids in the 1980s reported more anxiety than child psychiatric patients of the 50s.