Mind Dive Podcast Explores Clinician Suicide Prevention

This episode of The Menninger Clinic’s Mind Dive podcast features Christine Yu Moutier, MD, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), for a conversation about how clinicians and community members can become better educated on the signs of a mental health crisis and aid one another in supporting individuals who suffer from suicidal ideation.   

Dr. Moutier shares her insights into the evolving journey of understanding the many factors that surround suicide and mental health crises. Drawing from Thomas Joyner’s interpersonal theory of suicide, she stresses the need for integrating diverse research disciplines to better recognize and support individuals in crisis. In her role at AFSP, Dr. Moutier has made it the organization’s mission to create large scale public health initiatives and raise greater awareness for mental health causes.  

She has authored Suicide Prevention, a Cambridge University Press clinical handbook, and also contributed articles and book chapters for publications such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet, Academic Medicine, the American Journal of Psychiatry, the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Depression and Anxiety and Academic Psychiatry.  

“There’s a lot of assumptions and projecting about weakness or cowardice,” says Dr. Moutier. “What’s actually happening in the brain of somebody who is suicidal is that they’re not able to think about their connections to loved ones, their optimism or their own healthy coping strategies.”   

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