Mental Health Matters: T4EU Hosted Workshops on Suicide Prevention and Procrastination
May is the month dedicated to mental health, and T4EU member universities decided to mark it with two workshops on this topic for staff and students
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For years, the Slovene Centre for Suicide Research of the Andrej Marušič Institute at the University of Primorska has been organising its conference ‘Intuition, Imagination and Innovation in Suicidology’, which attracts many participants from all over the world. This year’s 16th edition of the conference, organised between 28 and 29 May, was further enriched by a T4EU workshop in which participants could share their valuable insights and experiences on the pressing topic of helping people in severe distress.
Prof. Dr. Diego De Leo and Prof. Dr. Vita Poštuvan brought together a number of world-renowned experts in the field of suicidology, such as Prof. Dr. Konrad Michel, Prof. Dr. Peter Gutierrez, Prof. Dr. Lorenza Entilli, Prof. Dr. Brian Mishara and Dr. Meta Lavrič, whose contributions greatly benefited to raising awareness about the dilemmas, the course of action, and what to avoid when supporting a suicide threatened person.
Co- moderator Prof. Dr. Vita Poštuvan said, ‘It is difficult to give an answer to this question that would serve as a recipe in all situations. Yet: what our speakers presented had some common denominators. We need to approach such a conversation openly, without judgment, and the person in need needs to feel that we care about them. If we address the topic of suicide more or less directly, it will be easier to take the next steps, where we need to take care, among other things, of safety. The key is to offer the person an authentic, warm, trustworthy and long-term relationship where they can share their (life) story, rather than superficial advice or empty platitudes, when talking about distress. Similarly, when a suicide occurs, we offer support at the time of death’.
A few days later, on 3 June, the next workshop dedicated to students followed. In a world of many distractions, procrastination has become a major problem among students, especially when it comes to studying and other academic commitments. To mark the entry into the new exam period, UP experts Dr Nina Krohne and Sara Vidmar organised a workshop entitled ‘I’ll do it Tomorrow: The Psychology of Procrastination’. During the workshop, the students got a good insight into the psychological background of why procrastination happens in the first place and thus gained some tips on how they can cope with it better in the future.
