Mandatory reporting is an excellent example of how tone-deaf and confusing mental health policy can be. Mandatory reporting laws require health professionals, including therapists and psychologists, to report certain things to higher authorities, even if they were revealed during an otherwise confidential session. Depending on were you live different things are reportable, but “danger to self” is virtually universal. Most people see this as a way to intervene during crisis, and they may be right. There really aren’t numbers about the efficacy of this policy. Like most things in mental health, it just “feels right” to the legislators who passed it. Therapists and other health providers may support mandatory reporting, since it gets them off the hook for difficult patients. But no one ever asks the clients what’s up. I was explaining mandatory reporting to my mom the other evening. Here in Texas, if you are involuntarily hospitalized (a common result of mandatory reporting)...
Suicide is not incomprehensible, inevitable, or evil. I have struggled with severe mental illness and suicidal ideation for decades. I, and most people in my situation, have been groping blindly though the darkness in shame and fear. Not any more. It's time we look directly into the void, together.