Enrique Echeburúa (San Sebastian, Spain, 72 years old), Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), says that when a suicide occurs, there are other victims beyond the deceased, and they do not receive adequate support. “The first thing [we need to do] is make it easier for the family that has lost a child, or the person who has lost their partner, to unburden them, to be able to talk about it,” he explains. “Silence is the worst thing, because many people don’t talk to them, even their social circle of neighbors and friends, because they don’t know how to approach [them], which leads to social isolation,” Echeburúa continues in a video call conversation.
The psychologist just published a book entitled Death by Suicide. In just over 150 pages, Echeburúa summarizes the fundamental aspects of a particularly human and painful phenomenon. “We have a very high cognitive capacity that can make us experience suffering and disappointments very intensely, and it makes us aware that we can put an end to our lives. People who attempt suicide want to stop suffering, not stop living,” he says. In the book, he presents suicide as a public health problem and explains it so we can better understand it and combat the stigma that has made it difficult to take adequate prevention measures and increased the suffering of survivors.
Question: Can suicide be addressed as if it were a disease?
Answer. Suicide is not a mental disorder like depression or addiction. In a high percentage—70% to 90%—of cases, there is an underlying mental disorder but there are 10% to 20%, who are people who may reach a point where they make an existential calculation, see that their life no longer makes sense, that they do not have a life project, and they feel isolated and experience a certain tiredness of living. These people may be influenced by external factors, such as a financial setback. At a given moment, shame or feeling socially ostracized can also lead them to an impulsive act of desperation, because death is seen as the only way to escape suffering.
Q. At the moment, there’s a lot of concern about suicides among young people and adolescents in particular. Has the situation worsened?
A. In Spain, most deaths by suicide do not occur in young people. The highest incidence is in adulthood, between 30 and 59 years of age, and a second peak occurs in those over 65 years of age, who may account for approximately 25 to 30% [of the cases]. Teenagers and young adults, between 15 and 30
