Suicide can be an uncomfortable topic to discuss, but we've all been impacted by it at some point. Glen Bloomstrom is my guest for today's show. Glen served as an Army Chaplain for 30 years, several of them in the 82nd, 75th Ranger Regiment, Special Forces and JSOC.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

After retiring, Glen started working for LivingWorks, a suicide intervention training company that has worked with the Department of Defense for over 20 years. Recently he wrote an article entitled, "Natural helpers: Needed reinforcements to head off looming suicides of despair." In his article he describes what natural helpers are, and outlines the power that natural help networks have to mitigate suicide. In this first of two parts, Glen discusses leading suicide theories based on the work of Thomas Joiner and Edwin Shneidman.