Listen to this episode
Text transcript
Amy: Hello , so very warm welcome to you all. This is the Headtorch Wellbeing Hour. I am Amy.
Angus: I am Angus, and of course we have Professor Rory O’Connor with us, our special guest today, and I’ll be introducing him more fully, shortly.
Amy: We are recording this so that you can tap into what Rory has to say at any time after this session, and equally share it with others if you feel that it would be helpful and interesting for them as well. For those of you that don’t know us, we are Headtorch and we’re experts in workplace mental health.
So we work with organizations really to help them develop a mentally healthy workplace, and we work with senior leaders, managers, frontline people. We work nationally, we work internationally, and Angus will tell you a little bit later on about how you can get in touch with us for a free health check.
So let me share a little bit about the format of today’s session. So I will shortly introduce Rory and then I will hand over to Rory and he will introduce himself using a mystery object and then he and I will move into conversation. After some time, Rory is going to pose us, everybody here on this call, a question.
So that’s going to be your opportunity to respond to that question and indeed ask any other questions that may have come to mind whilst Rory was talking. And then he and I will go back into conversation, he’s going to share some top tips. I’ll ask him then some quickfire questions before handing over to Angus for who will
give more formal thanks and let you know what’s coming up on the Headtorch calendar. So then, let me introduce…
Our guest, Professor Rory O’Connor, and we first met you, Rory, didn’t we, some time ago through your colleague, Professor Frank Pollick. Rory is Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Glasgow, where he leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab, which internationally is one of the leading suicide self harm research groups.
Rory’s president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and a past President of the International Academy of Suicide Research. He’s published extensively in the field of suicide and self harm. His research has been cited many, many times as evidenced by Rory being named in the 2022 ISI highly cited researchers list.
He’s the recipient of several awards including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s research Award. He’s also a co author, editor of several books and is the author of this year, award winning book, When It Is Darkest, Why People Die by Suicide and What We Can Do to Prevent It. Rory’s also contributed to numerous TV documentaries on suicide and co hosts the mental health podcast, MQs
Open Mind. So it gives me great pleasure, Rory, to introduce you and do introduce yourself now using your mystery objet.
Rory: Objet rather than object, is it?
Amy: Either or.
Rory: Very European. No, thanks, Amy, and I’m delighted to be here. to be here. So yeah, so I, I’m Rory O’Connor. I’ve been doing work on suicide or self harm for about 20, 29 years.
So I’m, I’m brought up in Northern Ireland and I’ve been in, uh, I think I trained in Queens and Belfast but I’ve been in Scotland ever since 1997, and we were chatting before we come on and I obviously love Glasgow and love Scotland hence why I’m still here. And, but it’s just funny now, I was just saying at the start that my kids obviously sound very different from me, given that, they’re obviously sounding very Scottish.
No, so the, I suppose in terms of my mystery object, I didn’t quite know what to do, and I was going to put up a picture of, a photograph of me as a twin. So I have an identical twin brother. He also works in the field of suicide research. He’s also a psychologist and he works more broadly in health psychology.
But I decided against that, and what I put up is what I’ve gone for is this. So it’s a tennis ball. and I suppose that tennis is really important to me in that given literally probably for almost every single day since 1994, I’ve been thinking about suicide. So I started work on my PhD on suicide in 1994, and, and obviously that’s a really, it’s really challenging, understandably, because it’s really an emotive and emotionally demanding topic. And and yeah, literally I eat, sleep, breathe, trying to understand and prevent suicide. And for me then, how I try to help manage my own mental health
is that, I play tennis, and tennis, when I’m playing tennis is probably the only time in which I’m really, I’m probably just focused on some other task, because obviously if I want to play any way half decent, I have to try and block out everything else. So I think tennis has been, and I also run as well, but couldn’t really think of an object for running, but tennis in particular is really, I played three hours
tennis last night. And it’s just so important for me to unwind and maintain that balance of, yeah, emotionally demanding work that I do, as well as, and then obviously everyday life. So that’s my emotional object. I think that’s. Yeah, or my, my, this is my emotional object obviously, as well as my,whatever the key object to introduce me.
So yeah, I think that’s probably enough of an introduction for me, Amy.
Yeah fantastic, that’s wonderful. So next stop Wimbledon, right? I wish never.
Amy: Yeah. yeah, I mean, you know, suicide is probably, I would guess, one of the toughest subjects to, to talk about, to think about, what advice can you just give everyone here listening to safeguard their own wellbeing throughout the conversation that we’re just about to have?
Rory: I suppose the first thing would be to say that, of course, if, because what none of us know, we all have our own direct experience of suicide, and there’s, and it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter what that experience is, we can’t predict the impact that a conversation like this could have on any individual.
And so please obviously feel free, of course, to step off the Zoom call at any stage and to obviously take time for yourself and your own mental health and wellbeing. But that just reminds me of a really important point in the context of the sort of Wellbeing Hour which is that it’s estimated now that for every person who dies by suicide, there’s probably upwards of 135 people who may have known that person.
And so if you then scale that up, that’s about, so there’s about 700, 000 people who die by suicide each year globally. So if you think about the people potentially newly affected by suicide each year, it’s about 90 million people. And and that’s, and of course most of those 90 million will not be bereaved in the traditional sense that we think about bereavement.
But you never, you’ve never any idea what, even if they didn’t know that person very well, the person who’s died, it could still have a huge impact on their wellbeing. Because if you’ve, struggled with suicidal thoughts in your own life at some stage, it may have brought back those thoughts to you, or it just also reminds us all of our own vulnerabilities.
So I think it’s really important message for employers, in the context of the setting we’re in today, to remember that it’s not just necessarily the proximity of the individual who died by suicide to the employee. That’s not necessarily a predictor of impact. Of course, those who are really close to the person, that’s very clear they’ll be impacted and no doubt will be offered support.
But we should never forget that the ripples of suicide are really wide. And so everybody, every employee, every person should be, have the opportunity of receiving some support, because as I say, it’s really hard to predict the impact. And then the last thing I’ll just say on that, and then sorry Amy you’re trying to come in,
is that the biggest ever survey ever conducted on bereavement by suicide was, um, by a person Sharon McDonald in Manchester, and she surveyed survey was over 7000 people. And what the one of the, there are many important take home messages from that survey, but a really important one was that the majority of people who responded to that survey were not family members of those bereaved, but friends and colleagues.
And so it really highlights to me that importance of taking everybody’s, the impact on everybody seriously. And then the very, very last bit of this is, um, is the, the, the, um, one of the things we know about bereavement by suicide is its unpredictability. So it’s there’s no, no one person is bereaved in the same way as another person.
And it’s just really always just to be trying to stand back and ask yourself how you may have, could have impacted you or somebody else and just be compassionate.
Amy: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. In your book, you say the only thing that’s predictable is the unpredictability of grief, right? what are the, what are some of the common feelings for those who are bereaved?
Rory: Well, sadly, really common, obviously, shock, obviously, rejection, loss, shame, guilt, and shame and guilt are obviously really difficult emotions to experience but they’re common, and that’s, and often is a normal reaction. And because, of course, it’s um, it’s not only a suicide, obviously a traditional bereavement, but it’s got these added layers of complexity and it is different, and it’s just recognizing that if you are, if you’ve lost somebody close to you or somebody you know, who’s died by suicide, we can never hold ourselves, are one individual, can never be held responsible for the actions of another.
And that, that, although it’s, I mean, it’s, although there are warning signs for suicide, and it is, and we try as we will, and certainly the work I’ve been doing over the last 20, 30 years is trying to better understand suicide, that we can prevent it. It’s really difficult to predict an individual suicide, and it’s, that’s partly to do with the complexity of the factors that lead to suicide, but it’s also to do with the fact that,it’s, although every single suicide is a tragedy, they are statistically rare events.
Thank you. so in statistical terms, if you look at a population, for every 100, 000 people who live in an area, in the UK, the rate of suicide is about 10 people in every
100, 000 will die by suicide. So, although devastating every one of those 10 deaths are, what you’re trying to do in predicting suicide is you’re trying to identify the 10 out of 100, 000,
and not only are you trying to predict the 10 out of the 100, 000, you’re trying to predict when they’ll die. So that makes it really difficult. And then the last bit on this is that, although we have made advances in understanding suicide, our ability to predict individual suicides is no better than chance.
It’s no better than the tossing of a coin. So please, and if you are experiencing shame and guilt, if it has happened to you, it’s fine. Again, a recurrent theme today will be the importance of self compassion, as well as compassion more broadly directed to other people, looking after ourselves. and then also recognizing that although
you’ll never be the same person again, but it’s about moving, it’s moving forward. It’s about moving forward step by step rather than moving on, and that things do change and get better.
Amy: So let’s um, let’s wind, wind back for you, Rory, what was it that drove you to, to a career in suicide prevention and suicide awareness?
Rory: So when I started out as a psychology undergraduate student in Belfast, as I mentioned already in Queens in Belfast, I did a final year dissertation on depression and, and the plan was I was going to, I really. was fascinated by that work. I’ve always been really fascinated by, by, about mental health, but the, that focus on depression, trying to understand it really interested me as a final year student.
And the plan was then to do a PhD then on, on depression. But then as it happens, serendipity plays its role and that summer, I think of 1994, I got a call in from the person who would turn out to be my PhD supervisor. And he said, there’s this opportunity for doing a PhD on suicide. And that’s really where it began.
So I started that journey then. And so I, at that stage, I had no direct, I hadn’t been directly bereaved. I’d known of other people who died by suicide, one other person in particular, but I hadn’t been directly affected. But then the sad reality, like many people will be on this call is, with their own personal experiences, is that since that moment, two people have, I’ve lost two people to suicide.
One of them being that person, my PhD supervisor, he took his own life many years later, as well as, in 2008, one of my closest friends took her own life. And I suppose what both of those experiences really highlighted to me was I’ve always been incredibly passionate about doing work in this area and obviously when it hits you directly in the face, it really highlights the importance of it, but also how difficult it is.
And I felt a lot of shame, guilt. I’d let, in particular, Claire, my friend, her and her family down. I was meant to be the so called expert and how could it happen to me sort of thing. And, but I think that really was a really humbling and sobering message which highlighted to me the scale of the challenge we face.
But also has, obviously redoubled my efforts and sort of passion for trying to drive the field forward, because for a while, when Claire died, I didn’t know whether I could continue working in the area because it was too painful for me. Because literally every day is about suicide. But thankfully, I made the decision to continue,
which hopefully was the right one.
Amy: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. and as you shared it in the book, you did, you have taken up therapy, you took it up in your 40s. What was the, what prompted you to take that step?
Rory: I think I suppose up until my 40s, I suppose I’d always been, I always thought I could solve everything myself, and I in many ways thought I was a bit of an island, I could just sort it all, I’ll sort myself out, And, but I was just incredibly, it’s complicated by the fact that my father died when he was 51 and I was 23, and so ever since I was 23 I’ve been waiting to die.
I know that sounds awful, but that’s how I’ve been feeling. But then actually when I hit 41, it really, it was like, oh my God, that’s… I may have only 10 years left, and so there was a sense of that weighing, it’s always weighed heavily on me, certainly when I hit 41. So it wasn’t when I hit 40, it was when I hit 41 I think in particular, that was sort of weighing heavily on me,
and I was just really felt really unhappy and, really empty, and his way of describing it was really empty. I may have been depressed. I don’t know. I never didn’t go through any formal diagnostic procedures, but I then just decided to, I really, that I needed to do something. and then, so I started psycho psychoanalytic, psychodynamic psychotherapy then, and that, and then from found it life changing for me.
Really, really helpful for me to manage my own mental health. And I did that weekly for, almost weekly or whatever it was for five or six years. like I stopped it last October So I can do the maths. No, I started, so I started the 42 then. I think 42 to, I think, yeah, 49, I think. Maybe seven years, on and off.
Amy: My maths isn’t the best, clearly. Yeah, it’s super powerful, when you’re ready for it, right? when you feel that it’s gonna… help you most.
Rory: Yeah, because I wouldn’t. So the other thing is, I would never say, tell anybody else how they should respond, but for me, it worked and we are all different,
so it worked well for me, really well, for me. But the only bit was I had to overcome because I remember initially I told nobody about it. I didn’t, I told the close closest to me, and, but that was it. And then, ’cause I did
Amy: You were gonna therapy.
Rory: Yeah. Yeah. My own therapy. But, so I have, yeah, I talked about it in the book and I thought I had to make a decision about, I remember when I was writing the book during Covid trying to make a decision, do you disclose this or not?
And I thought, for me to be authentic to who I am and I was, I’m trying, I was trying to write the book in a really authentic way, because the book, for those of you who just heard about it there, is my attempt to summarizing that stage 25 years of my career of trying to understand and prevent suicide.
But I’m trying to bring together the professional with the personal with my own experiences, of bereavement, my own mental health, and then, because of course, I have brought all that to my attempt at understanding. And I hope the book is written in a way which is accessible to all, and that authenticity I think, was really important for me,
because I also tell other people’s stories in the book. So if I’m telling other people’s stories, It’s incumbent on me and authentic for me to tell my own story.
Amy: It’s true, thank you. So let’s, let’s debunk a few myths then, Rory. All suicidal people are depressed or mentally ill.
Rory: Yeah, so in the book I list 14 myths around suicide,
and I think that is the first one I cite, I think, which is, and it’s important to highlight because if you take a global perspective, um, probably about, there’s different estimates, but globally about 50 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness or mental health problem at the time of death.
And that’s mainly because most suicides in the world are in low and middle income countries, and the rates of mental health diagnosis are much lower. So the relationship is different, there’s lower rates of mental illness associated with suicide in those countries compared to high income countries like the UK.
and in the UK we estimated perhaps that as many as 90 percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness. I personally don’t think it’s as high as that. And I think it’s, And that many people die by suicide in a crisis situation, or an acute loss of self esteem or, but it’s never just one factor
it’s always a combination of factors or the result of disadvantage, because suicide is associated with, hugely associated with inequalities. You’re at least three times more likely to die by suicide if you’re from a more socially disadvantaged background compared to a more affluent background. Now, but of course, suicide can affect anyone.
So the reason to highlight that as a method is, yes, there is a relationship, of course, we need to treat mental health problems, but we need to look beyond mental health problems. And one of the messages I’ve been saying for the last 20 years is I’ve developed a model of suicide, and the model of suicide saying, if you’re trying to understand suicide risk, you need to understand the drivers
to the mental pain that leads to suicide. And the argument is that people become suicidal when they feel trapped by that mental pain, but of course, what leads somebody to feel trapped is often feelings of defeat and humiliation. Which are often also triggered by rejection, by loss or by shame, and then the question becomes, what are the factors that lead somebody to feel defeated or rejected and then subsequently trapped. And that’s why I think that’s really important too when we think about trying to understand suicide, but of course, we need to treat mental health problems when we see them.
Amy: Absolutely. Let’s, as you’ve raised the subject there of your model, I particularly like within the book, you talk about, talk through Paul’s story as an example of the model.
Would you like to share that, Paul’s story? Whilst explaining the model, if you know what I mean.
Rory: Well, I can’t remember Paul’s story in detail. but, I can’t remember all the details but the point of it is that, I suppose the way I, maybe the way I’ve described the model, and I’ll think of examples from Paul’s story. Paul was a middle aged man who took his own life, and…
in, his history, he had experienced a childhood trauma, had a broken relationship, or at least one broken marriage, was a bit distant from his children, felt isolated, felt pretty useless as a person, and he also had known somebody else who had died by suicide. I think one of his relatives had died by suicide.
And so what that points to is this idea that if you’re trying to understand suicide, it’s never about one factor. We have to take a lifespan perspective, and the reality is that childhood adversity is a vulnerability factor for mental health problems, for physical health problems, and for suicide.
And so what I’ve done with the model, my model is really, it’s in three parts. So part one of the model is trying to understand the background context in which suicidal thoughts and behaviors may emerge. So things like childhood trauma, so you have early life, events, perhaps. It’s looking at your, broader environmental situation,
so if you’re in a disadvantaged area, you’re at increased risk of suicide or mental health problems. It’s looking at the stressors that people experience, as well as other vulnerability factors. and so that’s and so that’s sort of the context, what I call the pre motivational phase in the model. But at the heart of the model are parts two and part three and, and part two, actually maybe, Amy, it may be helpful just to stick the model up briefly because Amy’s got a couple of models.
And I’ll just quickly, we can put that up quickly and hopefully it’ll make sense. So I’ve just described that left hand bit, the pre motivational phase, as you can see there. And I’ve got diathesis, which is just a fancy word for vulnerability, then environments I’ve touched on already, and life events.
But at the heart of understanding suicide risk is at phase two and three. So phase two is called the motivational phase. And I know this looks complicated. What we’re trying to really understand… is what leads somebody to become suicidal. So this idea of having suicidal ideation. So ideation is just another word for thoughts and suicidal intent.
And as I’ve just said a couple of minutes ago, suicidal thinking is more likely to emerge when people feel trapped by mental pain. So that’s where the entrapment idea comes in, you’re entrapped by this mental pain. And then, of course, what leads to the entrapment are this idea of being defeated and humiliated.
And so I often describe the defeat and or humiliation to entrapment to suicidal ideation, as sort of part of the final common pathway to the emergence of suicidal thoughts. So don’t worry about the other details within that section for today, but really the key message from that second, that middle bit is, if we’re trying to understand why people become suicidal, what the question should be around is it that the person feels trapped, by life circumstances, by mental pain, it can be internal or external, and then, we’re trying to then understand and unpackage, if we can understand what the causes of those entrapment is, that mental pain is, we can hopefully intervene. And then the last thing I’ll say in the model is that the model makes another key message, has another key message.
And that key message is, the factors that lead somebody to have thoughts about suicide are different from the fact, from the factors that lead somebody to cross a precipice from suicidal thinking to suicidal behavior. And so if you now look in the, that sort of the, peach color on the right hand bit, which I call the volitional phase.
I like that you’re moving the, you’re moving the, somebody moved the cursor, which is right there. So basically the argument is, if we’re trying to understand this transition, who is more likely to act on their thoughts? There’s a group of factors within this volitional phase, and there are things like, if I know somebody who died by, has died by suicide, that’s called exposure to suicide,
it stands to reason that if you’re suicidal and you’ve known somebody who’s died by suicide, like Paul did in the example, you’re more likely to cross the precipice from thoughts to action. Now, and there’s eight of those factors, and other ones like impulsivity. If you’re impulsive, it stands to reason that you’ll…
act on your thoughts of suicide, or having ready access to the means of suicide. If you’ve thought of a particular method of suicide and you get easy access to it, of course, it makes it more likely that you’ll cross the precipice from thoughts to acts. But now it’s really important though, to put this in context.
Most people, for example, who’ve been bereaved by suicide, like me, so my statistical risk of dying by suicide is increased, but the overwhelming majority of people who’ve lost a loved one to suicide will never become suicidal and will never die by suicide. But what the model is trying to do is trying to understand our best estimate is
that about 30 percent of people who have thoughts of suicide cross the precipice and engage in some form of suicidal behavior. And the point is that these volitional phase factors are the important factors to understand, or better understand, who’s more likely to cross the precipice from thoughts to acts.
So hopefully that was clear, that was a lot to cover there in a brief period. But, and again, if you’re looking to know more, in addition to the book, if you go to our website as well at suicideresearch. info, which is our website, we’ve lots of free resources to describe the model and all the work that we do.
yeah, it’s,
Amy: it makes it,for me, it made it more understandable, if you like, what the process is. I think it’s important that we, we touch on the, how vital it is for people to, to reach out. And one of the things I was struck by was that you said, people who are suicidal are often described as hard to reach, but you said it isn’t that people are hard to reach rather,
it’s that we have failed to reach them.
Rory: That’s so important.
It’s, yeah, and, But actually, on,on, sorry Amy, just on that, just struck me, really important message, though. and, because we started this bit of the conversation looking at myths around suicide and then one of the really important myths, about this reaching out thing is, it’s a myth to say that asking somebody about suicide will plant the idea in their head. Now, so that’s a complete and utter myth, and indeed, the evidence is to the opposite, to the contrary. The evidence shows that if you ask somebody, are they feeling suicidal? Have they had suicidal thoughts? They’re actually more likely to get the help that they need.
And I often describe it as it’s so asking that question, reaching out, you’re potentially, it could be the beginning of a life saving conversation. So that conversation is only the start. Of course, suicide prevention is more complicated than that, but I would urge anybody, if you’re concerned about a loved one, a colleague, a friend, please ask them.
And in my experience of asking that question personally over many times and hearing other people’s experiences of it is, you’re not going to do any harm, and indeed, the person that you’ve asked it of, if they have been feeling suicidal, often the sense of relief, that somebody has taken the time and interest in them to ask that question, so that’s an overwhelming sense of the importance of asking that question, so please reach out.
And as long as you do it in a way which is compassionate, non judgmental, and validating, you’re unlikely to do any harm. And when I say validating, all I simply mean is, if somebody discloses to you… that they’re feeling suicidal. It’s just reflecting back to them that that must be really difficult, that must be really difficult for you.
And so they feel a sense of validation, because often people who are suicidal have a history or a lifetime of being invalidated, especially if they’ve have experienced early life trauma. So please reach out as long as you do it compassionately and non judgmentally, it’ll be all good.
Amy: Yeah. and you have a number of stories in the book about that, don’t you?
I was, I love this story about Zara, the elderly woman who received the note from her neighbor. Do you want to share a little bit more about that?
Rory: Yeah. So this was a lady, again, as you said, she lived in a, tenement flats scenario. and so basically she hadn’t been, she hadn’t been feeling great and had really had been thinking about taking her own life,
but she hadn’t been seen around by her neighbors that often. And then one of the neighbors just put a note under the door and just basically saying, how are you doing? Do you fancy a coffee? I can’t remember the precise wording now, but it was along that, those lines. and then what Zara then has basically then shared was that just receiving that, in that moment, she was feeling that she was, nobody would care if she was here or gone,
but somebody else had a shown an interest and it helped interrupt those suicidal thoughts. And for me, if you go back to this idea of going from thoughts to action, anything we can do which interrupts suicidal thoughts, because suicidal thoughts are not permanent, they come in waves of intensity.
And so if you can help somebody think differently, because often the tunnel vision associated with suicide, the person hones in on suicide as the only solution to their problems. But anything like that example, put the note under the door, I talk about another example of someone I met and somebody smiled at them in their daily commute.
And it’s just things like that can just interrupt the thoughts. And because remember, people who are suicidal often feel worthless and they feel a burden on those around them. And any sense of human connection is so important. And I think in a workplace setting, it’s really important because for mental health more broadly, because we know that most people who die by suicide are in employment, they’re working.
So it highlights the importance of the workplace as a potential to save lives. And I’m just trying to make the point that small acts of kindness, small acts of connection can make a hell of a difference. So don’t ever underestimate the importance of sending somebody a text or a message or just acknowledging that maybe things, oh, things don’t look so good for you or is anything up or whatever it might be.
really important to do.
Amy: Yeah, I was struck also by the fact that, that piece of research he talked about where the receiving a letter from, from the clinician just saying, I hope you’re doing well, feel free to get in contact and how that made such a huge impact, just shows, from that, which is much more formal, right?
but just that little bit of just that human touch, just that little bit of something of connection can just make all the difference. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much Rory. Let’s just share the question that you have now, for everybody here. So what can each of us do in the workplace to help prevent suicide?
we’re just going to put that question into the chat so you can refer back to it, but we’d love to hear your thoughts on this question now and or any other questions you might have for Rory at this point. So do put your hand up and we’ll bring you in.
Rory: Yeah. And then just Janet’s point there, just on the one about ask people how they are. I remember I did, a documentary with Roman Kemp a couple of years ago, and one of the key messages in that documentary relates to that question, which is, always ask twice. And, and it’s this idea, of course, if you think about it ourselves, if somebody said to you, how are you doing? Your default response is, I’m fine, right?
But maybe if somebody asks a second time, it’s more difficult to maybe just shrug that off and you’re more likely to get people to engage. So I always think that really struck me when we were doing that documentary of always ask twice for me. And, and yeah, and just an engagement. And you can start off at a general mental health one, obviously just asking someone how they’re feeling.
But I would also add to that, if you’re concerned that they might be suicidal, don’t be afraid to say, ask the suicide word. Asking somebody directly whether they’re thinking of suicide.
Amy: Thank you Rory. Alison Moore, you’ve said, part of my role as a health and safety officer focuses on health, so I actively promote mental health awareness and training.
fantastic. Yeah, the more awareness there is, the better, Rory?
Rory: Absolutely it’s but we have to be careful when we’re doing mental health awareness, the same as suicide prevention more broadly. One thing is awareness, but we have to make sure there are supports and services out there. So in an organization, in an organizational setting, it’s really important, of course, then that not only are there services and supports available, both formal and informal, but they have to be accessible.
We need to think about what are the visible and invisible barriers to people accessing support. And I think one of the key ways, I think my experience of trying to tackle those invisible barriers, it’s to ensure that there are senior people within your organization who are acting as role models, who are maybe talking about their own experiences in mental health and reaching out to whatever it might be.
That’s so important that we think about mental health awareness, but what makes sure that awareness gets into action, make it as easy as possible for people to seek and get the help that they need.
And actually come in a wee bit more on that Rory, we’ve actually had a big drive within the site, and this year we’ve had 28 Mental Health First Aiders that have been certified as Mental Health First Aiders.
I’ve also been highly promoting a local, effort by the North Ayrshire Council for where we live. So they have a lot of resources in the community that we have also reached out to. So they delivered a safe talk, which is all about suicide prevention and how to have those conversations, and, I’ve arranged for pretty much every line manager within the organization who has direct reports to receive this training.
We’re actively, we’re doing as much as we can actively, the group are out, they’re speaking to people, they’re having these conversations on a regular basis, we’re taking feedback and the resources that we have as well are quite good. We have an access support helpline via our employees, and the Mental Health First Aiders have also got lots of wee calling cards, if you will, that they keep in their pockets that have got loads of other resources that they can hand out to people as and when. Because a lot of people don’t like to answer your question, but when you know there’s something not quite right, you can go, well, do me a wee favour, put this in your pocket, and you can have a look at it later when nobody else is about.
And sometimes that wee bit is where it needs to go. Somebody’s listening to me, somebody’s aware, and always, we always have a priority. If you have had to check in on somebody or somebody has came to you, you make sure you go back a week later, two weeks later, and have that check in, have that follow up,
but after all, we’re all human beings. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the CEO of the company or whether you’re the cleaner in the company. We’re all human beings. And that wee bit of kindness and conversation can go a long way.
Amy: Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah, and Kirstie, I think you’re, Kirstie Sloan in the chat there, you’re sort of referring to
I think a similar kind of thing. I’ve been trying to remember little things about closer colleagues that I can ask them about rather than more generic. Yeah, that is that connection, isn’t it? For example, how are you? I saw you’re a new dad, lovely. How are you finding things? What does that closer kind of connect, connectivity do, connection do?
Kirstie: So this was actually, that was triggered by a situation recently and it was actually terrible on my part. We were out on a stafter and I’d had a few drinks and we’d been talking about, and I got into work mode, and I’m quite bad for falling into work mode, so I was like, work, work, work, work, work.
And I got chatting to the CEO, and he stopped me, and he said, can we talk about something that’s not work for a change, please? And I panicked. I was like, oh my goodness. And the only thing I could think to ask him was about the last conversation he’d had with us that wasn’t work, and that was about how he was doing with something personal at home.
And I just used the offhand comment, Oh, how is your son getting on? How’s he settling in? And actually that had a big impact on him, long story short. And then this week on Mental Health Day, which was Tuesday, Monday? Yeah, Tuesday. he sent out a big email and kind of explained that from that question that kind of prompted him to update everybody on how his son was doing and everything.
So since then I thought, maybe finding something but if you know a little thing about each of your team members, just asking them something a bit more personal means that you’ve paid attention and you’ve focused on them as a human.
Amy: Definitely. Thanks, Kirsty. Yeah, it’s tapping into what we are continually promoting the Five Ways of Wellbeing that importance of connection and knowing, knowing your people. Thank you so much. and, so let’s now,
Rory: Pick up on janet’s question. It’s a, it helps. I have a good, very good relationship with my twin brother, and so it’s worked.
Amy: So Janet’s saying, does it help or hinder having a twin in the same field as you?
Rory: Helps we get on very well. which is good. Which is really good. So it’s a def a definite benefit for me and fabulous on the bit on, I think the kindness is what’s come through those last two points, and I think just kindness costs nothing, but it’s just the, it’s invaluable.
Amy: Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you. so Rory, Here’s some of your top tips then, starting with this one here.
Rory: These are just, I thought were things that were personally useful for me and where I think could be useful, I think, for all of us. I think it’s reminding ourselves. The first one is sleep, is it’s, we, for good homeostatic function to make sure the body and all its mental and physical capacities works as well as possible, we need to be able to sleep or we need to, we all have different sleep patterns, but prioritizing sleep
for me, it’s so, so important, the, because as we think about problem solving, emotion regulation, decision making, all need good sleep. And those are three things which will adversely impact our mental health. So for me, it’s just trying to prioritize your sleep. And of course, that can be easier said than done.
that would be my first straightforward tip.
Amy: Fabulous. Sharing failures.
Rory: And this is difficult to do, depending on which, or it’s difficult to do in different settings. but for example, speaking as an academic, most of our life, in academia is about failure. We’re usually, what we’re doing is we’re putting in, we submit papers for publication, we put in for grant funding.
And for example, in grant funding, on average, 75 percent of the time you submit a grant, you don’t get it. Is a failure. And it’s important, and I think at all, and this is applicable across all, lots of different, obviously, organizational settings, but sharing those failures, recognizing that we all, even though when we look at other people and think they’re succeeding and they’re not failing, of course, we all have failures.
And I think we normalize that. I think it really helps and I certainly try and normalize that by sharing my failures and obviously, as well as celebrating success. It’s really important to do both because sometimes we’re not, we aren’t good at celebrating success.
Amy: Yeah, I think also it’s that thing of flipping thinking, isn’t it?
It’s seeing failure as a learning opportunity rather than something negative. One of our conferences, I remember, we know this wonderful poet and she was performing her poetry and she had us all standing up with our hands in the air going, shouting, I am a failure! Just celebrating that.
It was brilliant. exercise, nature.
Rory: Well, obviously I shared that in my first bit about, for me tennis is really important. And again, if we look at mental health, the evidence and running is really important for me, but the evidence for the efficacy of exercise for mental health, it’s as clear as a very, very clear thing.
So we again should be trying to even if you’re trying to juggle lots of different commitments, parenting, caring commitments, as well as obviously work commitments, it can be difficult to do, but even prioritizing 10 minutes a day for some form of exercise and benefits. And again, there’s evidence of being out with nature,
again even briefly, the mental health benefits are vast. With colleagues in the Netherlands, we looked at this actually looking at access to green and blue space and links to suicide. And again, you can see there’s a relationship there as well, even in that high level looking at suicide. Next one is, you could just generalize and looking more broadly at, and actually Janet’s got this one as well about rumination and negative thoughts.
It’s this idea that we as our mind plays tricks on us, especially if we’re in a low mood, and we have these cognitive biases that we’re more likely to see negative things rather than positive things. We’re more likely to overgeneralize that we’re a failure if one situation has failed, that we’re, I’ll be a failure always
and we know that’s standard black and white thinking. So it’s the whole principles of cognitive behavioral therapy in essence, that obviously, which has been shown to be effective as we know for treatment of mental health problems, and it’s just trying to be mindful of those. And actually mindfulness is obviously another example, which doesn’t work for everybody, but mindfulness helping us to focus on the present rather than worrying about the past or ruminating about the past and worrying about the future.
Try and spend more time in the present.
Amy: Yeah, yeah. We talk about that a lot, and,Angus might mention it later, he always gives the example of actually riding his motorbike is when he’s totally in the moment. it doesn’t have any other choice. So it’s, as you say, meditation and mindfulness might be great for some people, but it’s whatever works for you.
learn to say no. Yes, tell us about that one.
Rory: Well, it’s just something I struggle with, is saying no. I think I did try to say no to this event, originally.
Amy: I don’t believe that at all, Rory.
Rory: No, for me, I just get, you get so many requests, and it’s it’s trying to prioritize that, and that’s for all of us.
It’s… It’s difficult to do, depending on where we are in an organization, but I think it’s a really good skill to try and acquire. It’s not saying no to everything, of course, but it’s trying to recognize that, that the people who tend to say, certainly in my organization, the people who tend to say yes, are more likely to be asked again because the management manager may go, Oh, they’re more likely to say yes.
So it’s recognizing that there’s a time to say no, and we need to get better at saying it within reason.
Amy: In terms of workplace, it’s about creating that culture where it’s accepted, right? So we’re almost encouraged, for people to say no, rather than it being seen as something negative where then you find people saying yes when they actually have too much on their plate, right?
Rory: Yeah.
Amy: And finally, self compassion. Authenticity.
Rory: So again, I’ve touched on this already in the sort of conversation we’ve been having, and I think we are often too hard on ourselves. So for us to show compassion to others, we also need to show compassion to ourselves, and I think it’s, you often see people say, let’s be compassionate, let’s be compassionate, but you need to look after yourself as well.
So that’s self compassion, that to err is to be human, and it’s recognizing that you won’t get it right all of the time, and that’s okay. And it’s accepting that we’re all vulnerable, and there are different ways, and none of us is perfect. And it’s just trying to just take more time to be more, to have more kindness directed at ourselves.
And that’s self compassion is also about making space for yourself to do exercise, look after your own mental health, whatever it may be. And then related to, I would say these related authenticity is, I think often in our work settings, it’s more common for us to try and play out to our role.
We think what we think others expect of us, and we’ve done a lot of work on this in the context of social perfectionism. I’m somebody who’s very high in social perfectionism, which means that I’m really uber concerned about what other people think and expect of me. And then, of course, when I, every day is a sense of failure because I’m always thinking I’m letting others down.
But often when you have really high expectations, or what you think, sorry, other people have really high expectations of you, and you’re not being yourself. Of course that’s going to be bad for your mental health, so that’s why authenticity is so important, both for you and your own mental health, but also be authentic to others you work with, because, I think good management in any of its forms, doesn’t matter if it’s management or working collaboratively with your colleagues, just be yourself is much more authentic, and if, and if you do that, you’ll feel better, and hopefully that sense of human connection is more likely to be communicated with others if you’re authentic.
Amy: Fabulous. Before we get on to the quickfire question, I just have one other question, which I think people might find useful to hear some of your thoughts on, which is when a colleague dies by suicide, what’s best practice, what’s best for the workplace to do when that happens?
Rory: The best practice in terms of if a colleague dies and there’s family members, or what’s often the case is if a colleague is coming back. So there’s two bits there. One is if a, if an organization, If somebody loses somebody to suicide, there has to be an action plan in place and that should be that every organization should have an action plan and a sort of critical response action plan, but specifically tailored to a suicide.
And there’s lots of guidance out there and how best you should do that in terms of communicating with the family. How it’s disseminated and talked about within the organization, that it’s not just shut down because if you shut down something, then obviously all that happens is, that rumor and misinformation breeds.
So I would urge every organization to have a plan like that in place. But then there’s a second bit of that, which is if a colleague has lost a loved one to suicide. And it’s how do they want that dealt with when the person’s coming back to work. And again, the key message is, you need to just be direct and speak to the person because some people may want it, no details shared, or limited details shared, or not to be acknowledged. Or others may really be happy for debate and discuss. So again, it’s a tailored approach, but that should be part of the sort of action plan.
Amy: So plan, plan, plan.Don’t wait, be ready is the answer then. Thank you.
So some quick fire questions then Rory, are you ready?
Rory: Yep.
Amy: Okay, here goes. What does vulnerability mean to you?
Rory: , just accepting that nobody’s perfect and that we all have, it means lots of different things to me in a psychological way, to a personal way. I accept it. Lots of things will get wrong.
Amy: Great. What little thing do you notice or zoom into or celebrate every day?
Rory: My children. I always think of my kids. Yeah. Not always, but when I’m feeling, yeah, when I think, when a moment where I’ve had good fun with the kids, that’s what I always go to when I’m having a difficult day.
Amy: What message would you give your younger self?
Rory: Be less self critical. Be less self critical. I’m really self critical.
Amy: And what message would your younger self give you?
Rory: Well, there’s a funny one which is, well, I don’t know which way this goes, and I’ve said this
before, which is, when I was a kid, I used to think my ears really stuck out. And, and I did everything to, I grew my hair long, so you didn’t see them.
So my message, I don’t know which way around it will be, would be, you’ll grow into your ears because I don’t think they stick out anymore.
Amy: Wonderful. That’s great. What do you say to leaders that use, business leaders that is, workplace leaders, that use only plasters, give lip service to workplace mental health and wellbeing?
Rory: Depends on the setting, but there are two approaches. One is trying to reach them from a heart perspective, right? and really trying to illustrate that we’re all humans, that connection perspective. But then also, and I usually do a dual track approach on a hard nosed financial economic perspective, is that if you treat yourself better, if you promote mental health in a real way, not lip service, not only will it increase productivity and improve the whole culture around your organization, it’ll save you money and make you money.
Amy: Great. What’s going to revolutionize workplace mental health?
Rory: More and more leaders, senior managers taking on the role of mental health champions.
Amy: Fabulous. Rory, thank you so, so much. I’m going to hand over to Angus now. Thank you.
Angus: Rory, thank you.
That was, fantastic. I wrote a few things down, as you were speaking. Some of the words that come out are, or some of the things I was feeling that come out, very, it was very honest. It was very frank, powerful, very authentic, insightful, and potentially life saving. And it’s interesting you talk about, the simple things that can save a life.
So a note, a smile, any sense of human connection, as simple as that, we’ve all got that capability to potentially save a life, which is, how powerful is that? Yeah, all we need to do is do it. The small acts of kindness, the small acts of connection, always ask twice. Yeah, we’re all very good at saying, how are you doing?
I am grand, and that’s it. and don’t be afraid to ask the suicide words. I really like the bit that you said about invisible barriers. What are the invisible barriers to support? We all see the support that’s out there. We, as we go around organisations, hear lots and lots about, we’ve got support options, etc.
But what are the invisible barriers to that? Any wellbeing hour where I get to talk about motorbikes is obviously fantastic.
But, the importance of looking after yourself and whatever that is for you as a person. For me, motorbikes, swimming, mountain bikes, doing all that is where I’m completely absorbed. Tennis for yourself, obviously, but whatever it is, making that a priority is a super important thing and looking after yourself.
So Rory, thank you, thank you very much from all of us at Headtorch and everybody here, we really appreciate it. It was a fantastic wellbeing hour. Really interesting. And I think there’s lots there that people will take away. So thank you.
Rory: It was really great. and Liz and everybody, obviously, and
and Amy, obviously who’ve been there a great hour. I really enjoyed it. So,hopefully it was helpful.
Angus: Great. Thank you. We have Kate Goodger, who is Head of Human Innovation and Performance at Lang O’Rourke. She is a former sports psychologist, performance psychologist for Team GB. and, so that is going to be something a bit different again, and, I think very interesting as well. 15th November. Same time, 12 to 1, so please join us for that.
Also coming up, dates for Your diary, Amy and myself are speaking at the Scottish Manufacturing Conference in the SECC, so if you are going to that, please come along and see us, we’ve got the Wellbeing Hour with Kate there. We also have Chas Howe, who was FD of Superdry, and then in January we have Sue Sanders, who’s Director of Learning Development.
motorsport UK. So I may get an, another chance to speak about motorbikes there. So thank you everybody. That is us. please stay in touch, get in touch with us. if you’d like, one hour consultation with us, on your mental health in your workplace, give us a shout. We’ve got tailored solutions there for all layers of organizations and it’d be great to hear from you and hear what you’re doing.
Please follow us on LinkedIn, do all that stuff and, we’re bang on time. So enjoy your lunch and have a fantastic day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you so much for coming.
Rory O’Connor PhD FRSE FAcSS is Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and a Past President of the International Academy of Suicide Research.
Rory leads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Lab at Glasgow, one of the leading suicide/self-harm research groups internationally. He has published extensively in the field of suicide and self-harm. His research has been extensively cited as evidenced by Rory being named in the 2022 ISI Highly Cited Researchers list, that ranks researchers in the top 1% for citations in their field. He is the recipient of several awards including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Research Award.
He is also co-author/editor of several books, including being author of the award-winning book When It is Darkest. Why People Die by Suicide and What We Can Do To Prevent It. Rory has also contributed to numerous TV documentaries on suicide and co-hosts the mental health podcast MQ’s Open Mind.
Guests on this episode
Rory O’Connor
Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Glasgow and President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention
Get in touch
If you’re going to do it, do it right. Prioritise workplace mental health and wellbeing – start your journey with Headtorch today.