Before the comment about the suicide news, let me tell this to myself:
I am amazed my self to be talking about suicide in Japan. Before, I used to publish suicide news from Korea, and now, I am talking about Japan? And let me tell you, no, I am not a follower of suicide news. I just knew it was interesting to figure out why people decide to. And I know, it must be because of the fast growth of their economies in both country that triggers people to end their problems, since it’s hard to keep up with the changes.
It’s all these Korean wave and Japanese idol invasion in my life (I can’t say it’s for every Filipinos and my country) that makes me an alien to my own country. I could only read news about Asia in general, no TV for me, therefore no local news. And my only idea of local showbiz were the headlines in Starmometer.com, and I don’t even read every articles in it. I lost interest reading Korean gossip sites, I even worry that I might forget the names of every Korean artists I knew. (And that my Hangeul skills would soon be forgotten)
Back to the news, it seems South Korea is only second to Japan in terms of the suicide rates. The largest rate in Asia still comes from Russia. The latest suicide trend in Japan is through killing their selves with a gas called Hydrogen Sulfide. What’s alarming is that, with this, not only the people who try to kill themselves are affected but a few others who happen to smell remnants of the gas. Also, creating the deadly gas seems simple, with the use of household items like detergents and such. And yet with another similarity to Korea, Japanese seems to have the culture where they copy the suicide mechanism they see on the news. A portion on the end of the article shows the update on this copycat suicide.
In another article, the Philippines, considered still, a poor country, has lesser suicide rate than the progressive countries. I think most people here, doesn’t really want to end their lives, doesn’t really want to die, but rather wanted some attention, some help, that’s why they attempt suicide. I haven’t heard of people just jumping in the railway stations, but they’d rather climb over billboards and hold threats (which takes, as long time as possible, an hour is the minimum) if noone listens to them. People sometimes just laugh at it, and probably the "jumper" just wants to laugh about it, but I’m hoping people would not take it as a joke but a warning, that something worse might develop if we never do something about it. I remember someone who always complains to his family that he’s not happy and he’s sick and depressed. I know people in our country don’t take depression as something serious. They (or rather we) don’t bring anyone to the hospital unless the patient can’t walk.
I would like to put forward a perspective on the real reasons behind the unacceptably high suicide Japan from Japan and so will limit my comments to what I know about here in Japan but would first like to suggest that western media reports on suicide rates in Asian countries should try harder to get away from the tendency to orientalize the serious and preventable problem of increased suicide rates here over the last 10 years by reverting to stereotypical ideas of Asian people in general. People here do not wake up one day and say, “Hey, let’s commit suicide today because I hear it is all the rage in Shanghai and Tokyo and the word is that even the Changs and Suzukis are doing it!” In other words Asians are real people too and not lemmings and it is more than every before the time the world wide media puts aside its mystical cliches, anciently outdated and jaded misconceptions on the hundreds of thousands of men and women who take their own lives every year in Japan and other countries throughout Asia.
Mental health professionals in Japan have long known that the reason for the unnecessarily high suicide rate in Japan is due to unemployment, bankruptcies, and the increasing levels of stress on businessmen and other salaried workers who have suffered enormous hardship in Japan since the bursting of the stock market bubble here that peaked around 1997. Until that year Japan had an annual suicide of rate figures between 22,000 and 24,000 each year. Following the bursting of the stock market and the long term economic downturn that has followed here since the suicide rate in 1998 increased by around 35% and since 1998 the number of people killing themselves each year in Japan has consistently remained well over 30,000 each and every year to the present day.
The current worldwide recession is of course impacting Japan too, so unless very proactive and well funded local and nation wide suicide prevention programs and initiatives are immediately it is very difficult to foresee the governments previously stated intention to reduce the suicide rate to around 23,000 by the year 2016 being achievable. On the contrary the numbers, and the human suffering and the depression and misery that the people who become part of these numbers, have to endure may well stay at the current levels that have persistently been the case here for the last ten years. It could even get worse unless even more is done to prevent this terrible loss of life.
The current numbers licensed psychiatrists (around 12,000), Japan Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists clinical psychologists (16,732 as of 2007), and Psychiatric Social Workers (39,108 as of 2009) must indeed be increased. In order for professional mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to be covered for depression and other mental illnesses by public health insurance it would seem advisable that positive action is taken to resume and complete the negotiations on how to achieve national licensing for clinical psychologists in Japan through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and not just the Ministry of Education as is the current situation. These discussions were ongoing between all concerned mental health professional authorities that in the ongoing select committee and ministerial levels that were ongoing during the Koizumi administration. With the current economic recession adding even more hardship and stress in the lives its citizens, now would seem to be a prime opportunity for the responsible Japanese to take a pro-active approach to finally providing government approval for national licensing for clinical psychologists who provide mental health care counseling and psychotherapy services to the people of Japan.
During these last ten years of these relentlessly high annual suicide rate numbers the English media seems in the main to have done little more than have someone goes through the files and do a story on the so-called suicide forest or internet suicide clubs and copycat suicides (whether cheap heating fuel like charcoal briquettes or even cheaper household cleaning chemicals) without focusing on the bigger picture and need for effective action and solutions. Economic hardship, bankruptcies and unemployment have been the main cause of suicide in Japan over the last 10 years, as the well detailed reports behind the suicide rate numbers that have been issued every year until now by the National Police Agency in Japan show only to clearly if any journalist is prepared to learn Japanese or get a bilingual researcher to do the research to get to the real heart of the tragic story of the long term and unnecessarily high suicide rate problem in Japan.
Useful telephone number for Japanese residents of Japan who speak Japanese and are feeling depressed or suicidal: Inochi no Denwa (Lifeline Telephone Service)：
Japan: 0120-738-556 Tokyo: 3264 4343
Andrew Grimes
Tokyo Counseling Services
http://tokyocounseling.com/english/
http://tokyocounseling.com/jp/
The current numbers licensed psychiatrists (around 13,000), Japan Society of Certified Clinical Psychologists clinical psychologists (16,732 as of 2007), and Psychiatric Social Workers (39,108 as of 2009) must indeed be increased. In order for professional mental health counseling and psychotherapy services to be covered for depression and other mental illnesses by public health insurance it would seem advisable that positive action is taken to resume and complete the negotiations on how to achieve national licensing for clinical psychologists in Japan through the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and not just the Ministry of Education as is the current situation. These discussions were ongoing between all concerned mental health professional authorities that in the ongoing select committee and ministerial levels that were ongoing during the Koizumi administration. With the current economic recession adding even more hardship and stress in the lives its citizens, now would seem to be a prime opportunity for the responsible Japanese to take a pro-active approach to finally providing government approval for national licensing for clinical psychologists who provide mental health care counseling and psychotherapy services to the people of Japan.
http://www.counselingjapan.com