Featuring Dr. Dan Bilsker, PhD, RPsych

Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds

So when we talk about men's suicide what many people don't realize is that men commit suicide at a rate four times that of women.

They are vastly more likely to commit suicide at all ages than are women. It's something that researchers have known about for a long time, but in fact there's been surprisingly little research to try to understand why men are so much more vulnerable to suicide.

What's been noticed in recent data is that the suicide rate for men peaks in their middle age. We don't really know why middle-aged men are most at risk for suicide. Once again we're just starting to get some reasons.

Some of the factors relevant to men's suicide seem to be first of all, that men are very poor at managing psychological suffering. They've learned to manage psychological distress or emotional distress through ignoring it, through increasing their use of alcohol.

They're not likely to open up to friends or family members about their distress and what's going on, and they're not that likely to seek out professional help to deal more effectively.

When a man is having difficulty dealing with emotional issues, whether it's related to workplace conflicts or relationship or family issues, and has actually reached the point of having some transient or initial suicidal thinking, that's a pretty good time to sit down and discuss this issue with a family physician.

You may want to get referral to a psychologist in order to learn better strategies for managing emotional distress and problem solving, so that suicide doesn't loom as such a risk for you.

Presenter: Dr. Dan Bilsker, Psychologist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Psychologist