Hope Illuminated Podcast: Helping the Helpers Bring Light to Life’s Darkest Moments

When we ask “What do you do?”, what we often mean is “What WORK do you do?” In many ways — at least in the United States — our culture tells us, “You ARE what you do for a living.” Not only as a provider for your family and a meaningful contributor to society (and “meaningful” is often defined by the paycheck and the status") but as someone who is earnestly chasing the “American Dream.”

The original ideas of the “American Dream” may have been about equality, justice and democracy, its current interpretation has become the ethos of our society — the belief that anyone who works hard enough work can achieve material success and upward mobility and that this type of prosperity will give you liberty and happiness. Here the values of self-reliance and work ethic are highly valued and often come at the cost of our health, relationships, and others’ well-being as we claw our way to “the top.”

For some of us our work identity becomes what we call our “single-source” identity. Meaning, we have put most if not all our identity “eggs” into one basket: our work or wealth. We define our worth by the size of our 401K or by our promotions. Here we are particularly vulnerable. For when that “basket” crashes — through lay-offs, firing, demotion, failure, disability, even retirement — and we can no longer do the work that defines us, we feel “the fall is so great”, and there is no safety net to catch us.

On the positive side, when work is working well, it gives us a sense of belonging and a sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves. Work gives us structure to our lives and the satisfaction that our skills and talents are contributing to the world in some way. This positive aspect of our identity protects us against depression, anxiety and loneliness. In this interview with Scott Mason, we explore the role of our work in our identity and well-being. We argue that we all need to cultivate a multifaceted identity where our personal worth is based on being loved for who you ARE not just on being admired for what you DO.

About Scott Mason
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Scott Mason is a motivational and keynote speaker -- focusing on resilience, personal transformation, and social ethics -- as well as the Principal of Scott Mason, LLC, which provides small business consulting and leadership mentoring services. Prior to that, Scott was co-Principal of The Brooklyn Press, a silkscreen printing company with locations in NYC and Newburgh, NY. Previously, Scott was the General Counsel and Vice-President of Operations for Urban Resource Institute, the USA's largest provider of domestic violence shelter services and an operator of homeless shelters. He also spent nearly 20 years in executive and in-house counsel positions with various City of New York agencies, including a time as the second-in-command of the agency which operates the City's administrative tribunal system. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and Carleton College, and completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in 2019. for more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/76

Children, Teens and Young Adult Grief
When we look at developmental needs and abilities across the lifespan, we are aware of the need for different approaches to support our children. Our youngest children ages 0 to 2 are often preverbal but still very aware that something is not right when a family experiences a major loss. School-aged children are often concrete thinkers and don’t always have the language to express their emotions fully. Teens are more existential thinkers and turn to their peers more often than not. And young adults, often due to their independence can sometimes fall through the cracks.

For most of us, our losses are exacerbated during the holiday season, when we experience the empty chair around the table. In this episode, Dr. Micki Burns and I discuss five ways we can support kids who are grieving at the holidays:

Plan

Communicate

Reflect

Remember

Cope

About Michaeleen (Micki) Burns, PhD
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Micki is the Chief Clinical Officer at Judi’s House and JAG Institute (JH/JAG) and adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado. JH/JAG is a comprehensive family bereavement center in Denver. A Licensed Psychologist with two decades experience providing therapeutic assessment and support to families facing adversity, Micki has witnessed the lasting impact of unaddressed grief. She is dedicated to ensuring appropriate care is available for all and raising childhood bereavement to a level of critical public importance. At JH/JAG she oversees the direct service, research, and training departments working towards a vision where no child is alone in grief. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/75

What is self-awareness mindfulness?

“The awareness that emerges through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.” ~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Self-awareness, of our own emotional states is just one of the key tenets in collaborative social and emotional learning being taught in our schools. As a foundation for developing emotional intelligence and resilience, this type of education helps inoculate our youth against the many challenges they face. In this interview, I speak with Dr. Julian Dooley, an international expert on school-based best practices in social and emotional learning including:

Self-Awareness

Self-Management

Responsible Decision-Making

Relationships

Social Awareness

About Dr. Julian Dooley
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Dr. Julian Dooley, psi Training and Education Coordinator, has years of experience in mental health research, treatment and strategy. He has developed mental health programs for psi partner schools across Ohio and also provides psychology services to St. Mary Byzantine School in Cleveland through psi. Additionally, Dr. Dooley has more than 70 invited and peer-reviewed lectures and has been a member of numerous national and international boards and committees, including the Advisory Council of the National Centre Against Bullying and the National Coalition on Children’s Resilience and Mental Health. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Melbourne. For more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/74

In this episode, I interview Professor Silvia Sara Canetto, the leading scholar on critical studies of gender, culture and suicidal behaviors from intersectional and global perspectives.



Professor Canetto is most well-known for her research on the gender paradox of suicide, a term she coined, with Isaac Sakinofsky, to refer to the fact that girls and women are more likely to report suicidal thoughts and to engage in suicidal behavior, and yet they are less likely to die of suicide than boys and men.



Professor Canetto is also the author of the theory of cultural scripts of gender and suicidal behavior--a theory that builds on the insights she gained from researching the gender paradox of suicide.



In this interview Professor Canetto discusses what U.S. suicidology was like when she entered the field as an international student at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. She reviews her contributions to the field—from challenging its stigmatizing and gender-biased language (e.g., terms like “successful suicide” to refer to what in the United States is a more common male-outcome of suicidal behavior) to challenging dominant gender-biased theories of suicidal behaviors (e.g., that women’s suicidal behavior is an emotional and impulsive reaction to trivial relationship problems, and that men’s suicidal behavior is a desperate but deliberate response to serious social and economic adversities).



Professor Canetto then describes her theory and research on suicide scripts. A key point of her theory is that there are different situations, by culture, when suicidal behavior is relatively permissible and even expected, from certain people, using certain methods, and with specific social consequences. Another important point of her theory is that the different cultural scripts contribute to the cultural variability in suicidality rates. This is because suicidal individuals are influenced by these scripts in choosing their course of action and in giving their suicidal act public meaning. At the end of the interview Professor Canetto reviews examples of research supporting her theory. She also addresses the implications of the theory and evidence on cultural scripts of suicidal behavior--including that there are no universal risk and protective factors, and that therefore prevention should be grounded on local scripts of suicidal behavior.



About Prof. Silvia Sara Canetto
Professor Silvia Sara Canetto
Silvia Sara Canetto, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University, USA. She has graduate degrees from Italy, Israel, and the USA. She speaks, with an accent, every language she knows, English, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and her native Italian. Her scholarship on cultural scripts of suicide has been recognized with the American Association of Suicidology’s (AAS) Shneidman early-career award, and AAS highest-honor, the Dublin award. Her article “The gender paradox in suicide” is the third most-cited in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. She is “Fellow” of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Gerontological Society of America. For more information visit https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/73

Critical suicidology is an emerging area of scholarship and advocacy that brings together expertise from diverse perspectives to re-examine all that we have believed to be “true” about suicide prevention. Critical suicidologists question the highly medicalized framework of understanding a suicidal person and see suicide in context by understanding how other frameworks — like social justice — expand our imagination on what is possible in prevention, intervention and postvention.

In this conversation with Jess Stohlmann-Rainey, we talk about the ways traditional efforts in suicide prevention have failed us including:

Forced treatment

Fear-based approaches of restraint and isolation

Trying to predict suicide risk

And instead explore alternative, creative and upstream approaches to suicide prevention such as transformative justice work, mutual aid peer support, and accountability in making reparations for histories of harm done to communities.

About Jess Stohlmann-Rainey
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Jess Stohlmann-Rainey (she/her) loves to talk about suicide. She is a mad, queer care worker serving as the Director of Program Development at Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners in so-called Denver [land stolen from the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux)]. She has focused her career on creating pathways to intersectional, justice-based, emotional support for marginalized communities. Jess centers her lived expertise as an ex-patient and suicide attempt survivor in her work. Her work can be found in Mad in America, Radical Abolitionist, No Restraints with Rudy Caseres, Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers, Postvention in Action: The International Handbook of Suicide Bereavement, Crisis, and The Suicide Prevention Resource Center. She has been featured in USA Today and People Magazine, and her story can be found on Live Through This. She collaborates on an irreverant video podcast situation called Suicide ‘n’ Stuff with Dese’Rae Stage. Jess holds the Lived Experience seat on Colorado’s Suicide Prevention Commission, and was the winner of the 2019 American Association of Suicidology Transforming Lived Experience Award, the 2019 Cookie Gant and Bill Compton LGBTQIA Leadership Award for Excellence in Promoting Diversity and Inclusion Award, and chairs the Paul G Quinnett Lived Experience Writing Competition. She lives with her partner (Jon), housemate (Isaac), and chihuahua (Chunk), and has a taxidermied two headed duckling (Phil & Lil) for an office mate.

Centuries of discrimination and brutality have led to historical trauma impacting generations of people of color in the United States. Add to this significant current trauma of racially fueled violence the fact that communities of color experience disparities in access to qualified care, and it’s not surprising that we are seeing increased despair among BIPOC people. We are also seeing incredible resilience — at the individual and communal levels — and creativity as people of color find ways to cope. In this interview, Vic Armstrong and I talk about many hot topics:

Complex trauma in Black communities

Systematic racism and the treatment gaps in services

The trends in Black suicide rates

The shifting role of the Black church in suicide prevention

Distrust, crisis services and communities of color

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About Vic Armstrong
Twitter: https://twitter.com/1of2vics

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victor.armstrong.96343

Victor Armstrong joined North Carolina DHHS as ‪Director of the NC Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, Substance Abuse Services in March of 2020, with responsibility and oversight of the public community-based mental health, intellectual and other developmental disabilities, substance use, and traumatic brain injury system in North Carolina.



Prior to accepting this role, Victor spent six years as Vice President of Behavioral Health with Atrium Health. Based in Charlotte, NC Victor had responsibility for operations of Atrium’s largest behavioral health hospital, Behavioral Health Charlotte (BHC). The BHC campus contains the southeast’s only psychiatric emergency department, staffed 24/7 with board certified psychiatrists, as well as 66 inpatient beds, and 10 outpatient programs. Victor has over 30 years of experience in human services, primarily dedicated to building and strengthening community resources to serve individuals living with mental illness.



Victor currently serves on the board of directors of American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) NC. He is also former board chair of NAMI NC, and a member of American Association of Suicidology (AAS), and NASW-NC. Victor is a former member of the Board of Directors of National Council for Behavioral Health, i2i Center for Integrative Health, and RI International.



Victor’s awards and recognitions include 2019 Black Mental Health Symposium -Mental Health Advocate of the Year, 2019 Atrium Health Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion Award, 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award from East Carolina University School of Social Work, Pride Magazine 2018 "Best of the Best", and i2i Center for Integrative Health 2018 Innovation Award for "Whole Person Care", 2012 National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) NC, Mental Health Professional of the Year.



Victor graduated, Magna Cum Laude, from North Carolina Central University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and received a Master of Social Work (MSW) from East Carolina University. He is the husband of Dr. Charletta Armstrong and the father of 3 sons, Carter, Alonzo, and Victor Jr.

for more information on this episode go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/71

Can Employers be Held Accountable for Driving Workers to Suicidal Despair?
Waters, S. (2020). Suicide Voices: Labour Trauma in France. Liverpool University Press. https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/53177/
Waters, S. (2020). Suicide Voices: Labour Trauma in France. Liverpool University Press. https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/53177/

Internationally, over the last few years, there has been increased interest in work-related suicide deaths. No longer are suicides considered the sole result of an individual’s mental health condition. Currently, researchers have linked suicide death and suicidal despair to a toxic working conditions and job strain, including the following psychosocial hazards:



Job Design Challenges

Low job control — lack of decision-making power and limited ability to try new things

Excessive job demands and constant pressure/overtime

Effort-reward imbalance — related to perceived insufficient financial compensation, respect or status

Job insecurity — perceived threat of job loss and anxiety about that threat

Lack of job autonomy

Lack of job variety

Toxic work-design elements (e.g., exposure to environmental aspects that cause pain or illness)



Toxic Interpersonal Relationships

Bullying, harassment and hazing at work

Prejudice and discrimination at work

Lack of supervisor of collegial support — poor working relationships



Family Disruption

Work-family conflict (i.e., work demands make family responsibilities more difficult)

Family-work conflict (i.e., family demands make work role challenging)



Lack of Purpose or Connection to Mission

Heightened job dissatisfaction and the feeling of being “trapped”

Work is not meaningful or rewarding



Other Work-Related Health Impacts

Work-related trauma (e.g., personal or seeing and accident or injury)

Work-related sleep disruption (e.g., due to unexpected overtime, extended or changing shifts)

Work culture of poor self-care and destructive coping (e.g., alcohol and drug use)



In this podcast, I have the honor of interviewing Professor Sarah Waters from the UK. She is a leading global researcher on the topic of work-related suicides, and a driver of legislation to improve working conditions and help make suicide prevention a health and safety priority at work. Here we discuss a number of large employers who have been held accountable for the suicide deaths of their employees in criminal court.



About Professor Sarah Waters


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Sarah Waters is Professor of French Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on work-related suicide in France and across the international stage and seeks to understand the complex connections that link contemporary working conditions with the extreme and subjective act of suicide. Her book, Suicide Voices. Labour Trauma in France was published by Liverpool University Press in September 2020.

In her book, Sarah examines testimonial material linked to 66 suicide cases across three large French corporations. She examines ‘suicide voices’ considering how workers themselves describe the circumstances that led them to such desperate extremes in the letters, emails and recordings they leave behind. Why at the present historical juncture do conditions of work push some individuals to take their own lives? What can suicide letters tell us about the contemporary economic order and its impact on flesh and blood bodies? How do suicidal individuals describe the causes and motivations of their act?

Alongside her research, Sarah actively campaigns to improve workplace legislation in order to recognise and monitor work-related suicides. She is part of the trade union Hazards campaign in the UK that lobbies the Health and Safety Executive

She lives in Leeds and is a mother of two teenage boys.

Global Trends in Suicide Prevention
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I have the tremendous privilege of traveling internationally to do the work of suicide prevention and suicide grief support. On hand, it’s very humbling to see how this tragedy shows up all over the globe. On the other hand, it’s very inspiring to see how different countries and cultures find innovative approaches to address suicide. In this podcast, I interview the current President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Professor Murad Khan. We discuss some of the important cultural and social determinants of suicide as we look at why some countries’ suicide rates are going down, and why others — like the United States — are going up. We also share a number of ways that we can regain our humanity in a global cooperation effort in suicide prevention.

About Dr. Murad M. Khan
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Dr. Murad M Khan, MBBS, MRCPsych, CCST, PhD is Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Psychiatry at the Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. He is also Associate Faculty at the Center for Bioethics & Culture (CBEC), Karachi. He received his psychiatric and research training in the UK. He is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists & obtained his PhD from King’s College, University of London.

Prof. Khan is current President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and leads organization’s global suicide prevention strategy. He has published widely on suicidal behavior in Pakistan and developing countries, focusing on epidemiology and socio-cultural and religious factors in suicide and self-harm.

His other research and clinical interests include mental health of women and elderly, medical and organizational ethics and narrative medicine.

Leadership is tested during times of crisis, controversy and social unrest. The best leaders rise to the occasion and can create opportunities for meaningful and lasting change. In the world of suicide prevention, voices of activists are challenging established ways of doing things, and in many ways the field is at a crossroads. Many are finding themselves re-examining the questions and methods of our research, the protocols of some of our “treatments” and crisis services, and the systemic racism and other social determinants of suicide that have not received enough attention.

In this interview, I have the honor of interviewing Dr. Jonathan Singer, the current President of the American Association of Suicidology, who has weathered many transitions and challenges during his leadership tenure with grace and significant impact. He shares his story of how he became the leader he is today and invites others to find their voices to change the field to be more inclusive and effective.

About Dr. Jonathan Singer
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Jonathan B. Singer, Ph.D., LCSW is Associate Professor of Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. He is a two-time winner of the National Association of Social Workers Media Award in 2012 and 2016. He was a 2014 Visiting Scholar at Fordham University, the 2017 Lucille N. Austin Scholar at Columbia University, and the 2018 Distinguished Lecturer at Weber State University. He is the President of the American Association of Suicidology and coauthor of the 2015 Routledge text, Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner's Guide to Multi-level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention, and Postvention.

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Dr. Singer is a well-regarded international speaker who has given hundreds of continuing education workshops, keynote addresses, and presentations on youth suicide, ethics, technology, adolescent development and attachment-based family therapy in the USA, Latin America, and Europe. He is the author of over 65 publications and his research has been featured in national and international media outlets like NPR, BBC, Fox, Time Magazine, and The Guardian. He is an NASW Expert, Healio Psychiatry Peer Perspective Board member, and on several national youth advisory boards including Sandy Hook Promise and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. A pioneer in the integration of technology and social work, Dr. Singer is a founding member of the online suicide prevention social media community #SPSM; the Treasurer for the international human services Information Technology association (http://husita.org/); and co-lead for the Social Work Grand Challenge initiative "Harness Technology for Social Good."

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Dr. Singer is the founder and host of the award-winning Social Work Podcast (www.socialworkpodcast.com), the first podcast by and for social workers. The Social Work Podcast has over 38,000 followers on social media, listeners in 208 countries and territories, and a million podcast episode downloads per year. He lives in Evanston, IL with his wife and three children and can be found on Twitter as @socworkpodcast and Facebook at facebook.com/swpodcast. for mpre information go to https://www.sallyspencerthomas.com/hope-illuminated-podcast/68

“Storytelling is the water of human communication…”

(Bayer & Hettinger, 2019, p. 4)



“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a more powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story…”

~Ivan Illich



Our individual narratives are “building blocks” for our collectively shared representations of the past and our projections for the future. When our stories collide and reconcile with one another on an interpersonal level, they start to illuminate the nuances of underlying themes and concerns, especially among marginalized groups like those impacted by mental health conditions, suicide loss and suicidal intensity.

“Even though storytelling is a traditional means of delivering knowledge, wisdom and culture, it has a central role in social movements because it constructs agency, shapes identity and motivates action.” (p. 2, Prasetyo, 2017).

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Community activism is built on a cycle of trust, undergirded by stories. Synergy is achieved by weaving together purpose-driven and authentic voices that together represent a community as a whole. When the collection of stories is shared publicly, the advocates have an easier time enrolling others into the movement. When people listen to stories, communities are formed and pull together. Shared experiences become a profound source of validation and consolidation of learning. We are co-constructed by relationships in the community and the stories that arise as a result.

It is no wonder, then, that a number of collective storytelling initiatives about suicide prevention and mental health promotion have emerged, including “This is My Brave.” In this interview I interview Jennifer Marshall, founder of this nonprofit storytelling organization.

About Jennifer Marshall
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Jennifer Marshall is the co-Founder/Executive Director of This Is My Brave, Inc., the nonprofit platform for individuals to share their story of overcoming mental illness through creative expression. This Is My Brave held its first show in 2014. Since then, the organization has produced 70 shows across the US featuring over 825 individuals who’ve shared their stories on stage in front of a live audience. Jennifer gave a TEDx talk in October of 2016 entitled “Mental Illness: Being Brave Saves Lives.” In June of 2018 Jennifer was awarded the prestigious Clifford W. Beers Award by Mental Health America. In December 2018 Jennifer was named Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine