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Counselor named to state suicide prevention network


Gov. Phil Bredesen has appointed a University of Tennessee at Martin staff member to the advisory board for the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network. Dr. Andy King, the director of UTM's Office of Counseling and Career Services, will represent the network's Rural West Region through September 2005.

The network is part of a statewide strategy to promote awareness that suicide is a preventable public-health problem. "(The network's) purpose is to develop broad-based support for suicide prevention," said King, a licensed counseling psychologist. "Our goal is the development of strategies that will reduce the stigma associated with being a consumer of mental-health services. We're going to start connecting people with those resources."

Besides this primary goal, King said that the network will take other steps to educate people in the region about the growing problem of suicide.

"We want to promote the efforts to reduce access to lethal means and methods of self harm," he said. "We want to implement training for the recognition (of) at-risk symptoms ...

"It's not a cancer. It's never a lost cause. But it's also (a) very frightening scenario that a lot of people don't know how to deal with."

King said that suicide is now the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. Suicide is increasing for young people, including young African American males, and has always been high for people in their mid-60s, he said. Nationally, there are 750,000 suicide attempts annually, and 95 percent of those individuals have been diagnosed as having some sort of mental illness.

In Tennessee, King said that the number of suicides, up 10 percent since 2002, now exceeds the number of homicides. He says this rise in suicides is disturbing, because suicides can be prevented.

King points to several warning signs for persons possibly considering suicide, including alcohol or drug use and previous suicide attempts. Other behavioral signs include a sudden increase in moodiness, high-impulse behaviors, and a drop in school performance for students or work performance for employees.

These and other symptoms, he said, need to be put in context, especially if the person has experienced a sudden loss, such as the death of a friend or family member. Such an event, he said, can intensify feelings of depression.

"It's important that when you're listening to someone exhibiting suicidal symptoms to refrain from judging and minimizing," King said. "Listen more and encourage them to speak about what's troubling them the most."

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