When safe is not enough: an exploration of improving guidelines on reporting mental illness and suicide

Abstract

Mental illness, coping, and suicide-related stigma are influenced by social discourse. Legacy, digital and social media create and amplify existing attitudes and contribute to mindsets and behaviour, including suicidality. While internationally there have been guidelines for several decades, the focus has been on ‘safe’ language and word choices that highlight problems. However, these guidelines have not prevented deaths by suicide and have contributed to the prevalence of catastrophising of normal unpleasant emotions and social problems as mental illness. With calls in government reviews and by consumers for greater focus on consumer-centred suicide prevention and the advent of increasing biopsychosocial stressors from COVID-19, consideration of other approaches to and inclusions in media guidelines are timely and prudent. In this article, we explore how a consumer-centred coping approach would augment existing media guidelines to influence community attitudes and behaviours in a way that contributes to health and wellbeing, as well as suicide prevention.