Trilogy of Suicide Prevention Webber Han At 2:00 AM in a sealed up mansion, standing on a stool, he is gazing at a noose that is being held by his hands. He was a triumphant entrepreneur one year ago. One year later, his debt equals ten times as much as the most money he ever owned. Now the end of his life is just one step away to him. This story is an epitome of Taiwanese society in the last few years. Suicide has been one of the top-ten causes of death in Taiwan for the past nine years. According to the official statistic, a Taiwanese commits suicide in every 2.7 hours. In order to prevent this deteriorating social issue, we can adopt three easy but effective steps. First of all, we should detect SOS signals from friends who may contemplate suicide. If surrounding friends of would be suicide victims have received warning and assisted them, most of misfortunes would not happen. Before people committed to suicide, approximately seven-tenth of them had signaled warning; half of them had consulted doctors; and four-tenth of them had had some records of suicides. In addition, a plethora of people who had attempted to kill themselves but were saved will attempt it again within three months. If anyone of your friends belongs to such a high risk group as mentioned above, you should talk with the person concerned in an appropriate occasion rather than avoid and ignore this topic. The second step is that we should listen to and accompany with people who belong to the high risk group of suicide. All of them know all principles of life, but they just can't put principles into practice. Meanwhile, delivering more sermons will just place more pressure on them. As we are expressing our empathy, persons concerned may say their hidden worries without reservation gradually, which will relieve their spiritual burdens. Furthermore, we can support and encourage them in concrete ways in order to cease the sense of hopelessness. Finally, we can consider asking for help from professionals. Some non-governmental counseling institutions, such as LifeLine and Teacher Chang, provide free counseling service and telephone counseling service. Besides, the Department of Health also established several mental care centers. Mental counselor there can provide the necessary assistance. However, if situations of the people concerned are severe, continuous and irretrievable, they may suffer from melancholia. Then they will need psychiatrists' diagnoses and treatments. To sum up, most Taiwanese are reluctant to talk about suicide, as it is such a taboo topic. But we can never prevent it if we just avoid it. On the other hand, everyone can save friends' lives as long as they follow the trilogy of suicide prevention, which are being aware of the warning signs, listening with resonance and seeking professionals counseling. --

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