How would you talk a stranger off the ledge?

When I was actually suicidal, what kept me from going through with it was:

1) Although my plan had three separate ways by which it could kill me, it was possible that all would fail, such that I would wind up still in all the pain that was driving me to kill myself, plus on life support machines and with people hovering over me annoying me.

2) I would actually have to get up and do it, which was effort.

When I told people about the plan in #1, though, it was because I wanted them to listen to me. I was back off the brink for some reaon, and I wanted to talk about where I'd been. Somebody who tells you they're suicidal isn't asking you to talk him out of it; he's asking you to listen. Which is why the advice you were taught works. Someone who listens is a precious gift, there, where you can still feel the pull of suicide, even someone you suspect is listening just because they're socialized/paid to do it.

On the other hand, when you're out feeling the pull, you've had lots of (people you perceive as) idiots, giving you (seemingly) bad advice and (seemingly) pointless arguments. I, at least, didn't want to hear yet another theory as to why suicide was a bad idea; frustration at such yammerers made suicide look like a better idea the longer they talked.

The advice you were given back in high school was distilled professional expertise. Evaluate carefully before you dismiss it.

A few disclaimers. I am not a mental health professional, as is probably more than apparent. I have some experience dealing with both ostensibly and explicitly suicidal friends. My personal history also includes periods of depression and bouts of suicidal intentions of varying degrees of intensity. In addition, have an intellectual interest in the subject. If anyone with better experience, knowledge or training in this area wants to correct me, I implore you to do so. Dealing with a suicidal friend or loved one is one situation where you definitely do not want wrong information in your head.

With that out of the way...

It is my belief that if someone has a genuine, premeditated and well-thought-out intention to end their life, you won't find out about it until they've already done it. It will be planned in such a way that they won't be disturbed, and won't fail on the basis of conviction. They'll do it 'properly'. As a result, this advice applies to the more melodramatic 'cry for help' expression of suicidal intent.

People don't just suddenly decide that it's a good idea to kill themselves. It usually isn't a very good idea. It's usually the result of a sequence of events which points to threatening suicide as an appropriate outcome of the situation. The old saw of not being able to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into is quite true in this case. Don't try and engage in rational argument about why they shouldn't kill themselves.

Your goal is to try and steer their mood to a point where they think "gee, wasn't I silly for thinking about killing myself?" I find the most straightforward way of doing this is focussing their attention on near-future events. People they want to see, places they want to go, upcoming social engagements, even something as mundane movies or books they expressed an interest in. Planning for the future and contemplating suicide are fundamentally at odds with each other. In Robin Hanson jargon, suicide is Far, and becomes appealing through a lack of Near consequences for carrying it out. Even something as trivial as missing the next Batman movie can be enough of a Near consequence for someone to feel silly about the whole wanting-to-kill-themselves thing.

Another important element is to try and keep the tone and content of the conversation as normal as possible. There's a fairly well-established cultural narrative for how these sorts of exchanges are supposed to go, and steering away from that narrative will make their actions seem more and more silly in context.

This actually came up for real on this site a few months ago. Not a literal ledge, but a blog post and comments. It didn't work.

ETA: Sorry, depressing topic. I should have explained more. It came to the attention of LW that a former LW user had mentioned what might have been a suicide plan on his personal site. A lot of LessWrongers attempted to dissuade him. He apparently disclaimed any suicidal intentions and deleted the post, but I'm sorry to say it later became clear that he soon did, in fact, kill himself.

An alternative argument for not killing yourself yet: in the U.S., life insurance is required by law to cover deaths by suicide that occur at least two years after the policy was purchased, and the "return on investment" is ridiculously large; when I looked up insurance quotes a few years ago, an otherwise healthy young man can get a million dollar insurance policy for an annual premium of $600. Of course, money isn't of much use to a dead man... or is it? You can designate a charity as the beneficiary of the policy, or simply make the charity the owner of the policy. And GiveWell gives some relatively low figures for the amount of money it takes to save a life in Africa - somewhere around $1000-$2000. If you kill yourself and didn't buy health insurance first, the people the insurance money could have saved won't be. So if the would-be suicide is also altruistic, you might be able to talk them into deciding to delay. And if you tell them this plan and they actually go and do it, well, at least you've saved more lives than were lost...

I reviewed the stuff I'd learned back in high school ("Listen." "Be supportive." "Don't argue." "Etc etc etc.") I have trouble believing that this would work outside of movieland, especially on strangers. More so, in person I'm an awkward, fidgeting introvert---the impact of everything I say is thus diminished, and I sound very insincere or nosy, like I'm following a bad movie script, when I say anything like, "You are not alone in this. I’m here for you." or "How can I best support you right now?" I doubt that this would sound any better in writing.

It might seem to you that this isn't the sort of thing that would work in real life, but in general, yes it does.

If you're worried about sounding insincere, try and think of something genuine and non-trite that you can say. For instance, many suicidal people don't believe that anyone would care or be meaningfully affected by their deaths; try and think of a sincere way that you could tell them that you do care whether they live or die.

Any specific words you might have been taught are unimportant, they're really just a guideline to the sort of structure you ought to assume.

There are specialists in this field, namely suicide hotlines, suicide crisis centers, etc. who are prepared to help your friends at a moment's notice.

The argument you give here (the "bum comparison principle") is the exact same one I've used. If you can commit suicide, then you should be able to walk away.

This is a series of posts by a fellow who volunteered on a suicide hotline for a number of years which I found informative. It provides the straightest answers I have seen to the question: how do you talk a stranger off the ledge?

This is an aggregation of resources on another website which has discussed the issue in detail.

Strange this should come up now. Two days ago my best friend attempted "suicide". (I put it in quotes because it was a fairly obvious cry-for-help, not an actual I-wanted-to-be-dead-but-screwed-up). I've spent the whole weekend with fallout and mitigation (visiting in the hospital, cleaning up his apartment for when he's released, contact his mother & boss, etc).

I'm glad it was only a cry-for-help, because I find it difficult to argue with someone who has decided they are better off dead. I figure they are probably a better judge of that than I am. I was suicidal once myself. I'm glad I didn't follow through, my life is good now. But I have the benefit of hindsight. Back when I was suicidal, I really would have been better off dead, my life experience was one of constant negative utility. Had my life NOT improved and I'd gone the past 12 years continuing to experience that, I'd have endured tons of pain for no good reason. I hate telling people that their life will get better, and the person they'll be 10 years from now will be very happy they didn't kill themselves, because I don't know that will be true.

That being said, it's much harder to kill yourself when your friends/family are around. Don't let them be alone, as much as is feasible. And yes, that means physically present. Internet is no substitute at all, and phone is a VERY weak substitute.

As for a stranger? I don't think it can be done, unless they already WANT to be talked down (in which case it was a cry for help anyway). Grab them and physically keep them away from the ledge until a loved one or paramedic can come collect them.

Has anyone seen the Singapore Police Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Police_Force_Crisis_Negotiation_Unit) or another professional crisis negotiation unit do crisis negotiation? Literature on the topic is unspecific. For instance, I doubt police negotiators use ]relaxation techniques(relaxation techniques.) in a heat of crisis negotiation.

I suspect that people on the edge would be fairly different to one another. I suspect that the highest reliability strategy would relate to relaxing the person on the edge, but that's not why I'm commenting. If someone is literally on the edge, it would be useful to be able to make inferences about how rational they are being. If someone is jumping at less than 45m, they are probably doing it in hot blood or they are not very good at researching available balconies. If it's higher, perhaps they've made a considered choice, and you ought to be actually compassionate. Compassion is about empathy. It's not just about empathy, but that's one part. And when you put yourself in someone's shoes, you sometimes have to stop mentalising or acting paternalistic and help people do what they want to do.

IME, distracting them until they come down helps. (I've never dealt with a physical ledge, occasionally over the phone.)

It's a good real-world example of "shut up and do the impossible". It's also unspeakably draining and I want not to have to put in such effort ever again. But, of course, will and can if I have to.

I at least find the pain of impending loss much worse than actual loss. After an actual loss, I just move on. But I find an impending loss very oppressive. I'd check to see if the loss was impending, or had already occurred. If it has occurred, getting them to really accept that it has already occurred may help. If it hasn't occurred yet, temporize, and tell them that you never know how things will turn out. Wouldn't it be a shame to kill yourself when the Awful Thing ended up not happening? At least stick around to find out.

Along the lines of temporizing, try to convince them that they can always kill themselves tomorrow. Should work like a charm for the procrastinators around here. Surely there must be something they'd like to do before they go. You may as well do it first, before you kill yourself. Too busy killing yourself to go to a movie? Do they have any money they could give to charity? Movies they'd like to see? Places they've wanted to visit. Freaky sex they never got around to? Drugs they never tried? Some fancy restaurant they were always too cheap to go to? No point in dying with a dollar in your jeans.

Start by telling them you'll find them a big ass rock... ;)

Do you mean something like that if one has that many problems one could just walk away from them and become a bum...? I think that one could think that they or the world or some interaction of the two is the problem, and there's no escaping from that by becoming a bum.

As you have probably learned, you want to establish a connection first. Given that you had suicidal thoughts yourself, you can start with something like "Yeah, man, some days I want to off myself, too. Life sucks. I swear, if I had a pill handy I might have done it already." You then try to go on by comparing the issues that make you think of ending it all (loss of a job, of a partner, bullying, depression, illness, ...), asking for advice in your circumstances etc.

There is no point trying to convince them of anything until they trust that you understand what they are going through. The lines you quoted ("You are not alone in this. I’m here for you." or "How can I best support you right now?") actually set you apart from them. What they hear is: "I am in a good place, I can even spare some of my happiness to listen to your clearly overblown issues".

Even after you are on the same wavelength, pushing what worked for you on them is probably counter-productive (typical-mind fallacy etc.). Letting them tell you what got them off the brink before and whether it would work this time might work better. Slipping into one of your more depressed moods and letting them give you advice is more likely to get them to apply this advice to themselves, a far more effective approach than rummaging through your own bag of tricks and see what works on them. There is, of course, a chance that their foul mood would push you over the edge, too, and you should be prepared for it.

There are helpful online resources available, such as the video testimonies from the It gets better project. Once you understand your friend's issues, you might offer visiting a relevant site together and talk it over while browsing.

If this seems like too large an investment of time and effort, it's because it is. Whether you find it worthwhile for you is up to you to decide.

(1) Ask,"have you tried anti-depressants?" If the answer is no suggest giving them a try before committing suicide. (2) Explain option theory. (3) Explain that suicide might cause them to miss out on a Utopian Singularity.

Edit: I sort of really do (3). After I discuss the technological singularity with my college students I sometimes mention it as a reason not to commit suicide. This also lets me implicitly discuss option theory. Several students at my college have committed suicide since I joined the faculty.

You could try reverse psychology, tell them "don't step off the ledge" or "Don't do it!". This is a bit dangerous but might cause them to follow through just to be defiant.