Kurt Michael, Ph.D.

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SUPER: Kurt Michael, Ph.D.
Senior Clinical Director
The Jed Foundation

DR. MICHAEL: I’m Dr. Kurt Michael. I’m the Senior Clinical Director at the Jed Foundation.

I’m a father and a spouse and I’m a gun owner and I’m a provider. Because I have different perspectives, I think I’m in a good position to offer some…at least some guidance.
 

SUPER: The leading method of suicide in the United States is by firearm
Source: Gun Violence in the U.S. 2022, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions
 

DR. MICHAEL: The leading method of suicide is by firearm, by a wide margin – that’s number one. Number two is that three quarters of suicide happen at home or in the place of residence. And three, in terms of where those firearms come from for young people who die by firearm suicide, 80% are household guns.

Providers should know something very specific about suicide. We’ve been asking the question “Why?” for decades. We have to add to the “Why?” a question around “How?” And because the question around “How?” has been shown to be effective in preventing not only attempts but ultimately death.

You don’t necessarily have to start by talking about firearms first. Maybe a softer approach would be to mention the importance of medication safety first to warm them up to that conversation around firearms.

Becoming familiar with firearms doesn’t require gun ownership. We have to start where our clients are. It’s really focused on prevention.

The words that you use matter. Those words need to be safety focused, collaborative, respectful. We’re not here to debate things. We want this not to be adversarial. We want this to be life affirming.

If their desire is to protect their family, we lean into their own problem-solving abilities to come up with storage plans that work and that prevent the loss of their child – and everyone can get behind that.

The essence of doing this work is trying to help families create time and distance between a highly lethal means and a suicidal crisis.

I’ve had these conversations for years. The conversations I had with families that lose children are by a factor of three that much harder and I would much prefer if we can focus our energy on what happens to prevent death as opposed to dealing with the consequences of death.

Let’s agree to agree to prevent firearm death.

SUPER: AgreeToAgree.org/HealthCare

LOGOS: Agree to Agree, American Medical Association, and the Ad Council