Transition-the silent killer
For immediate release
TRANSITION THE SILENT KILLER
Suicide claims a worrying number of lives with men much more at risk than women in the UK. But what makes so many healthy, educated, intelligent and talented people doing “enviable” jobs take their own lives? So far, no plausible explanation has been found. But now, the Founder and Director of Transition Planning UK (TPUK) Simon Aidoo claims to have found the reason why people end their own lives and the solution.
Simon Aidoo’s initial belief around people who end their own lives was that they must be suffering from a diagnosable mental illness such as depression.
But the myth about suicide was busted by Simon’s own personal life experience which nearly made him commit suicide and the work by Prof Rory O’Connor who runs one of the world’s leading research centres into suicide at Glasgow University and conducts experiments into the psychology of suicidal behaviour.
Prof O’Connor has found that mental illness is often, but not always, a part of the problem but isn’t sufficient as a complete explanation. He is quoted as saying, “we think that most people who die by suicide have a mental illness but less than five percent (5%) of people with a mental illness take their own lives.”
What suicide notes cite as the reason
People who end their own lives often cite reasons like divorce, separation, financial problems, death of a loved one, an incurable disease, an abrupt end to a glorious career and redundancy. But these things happen to a lot of other people and the majority do not choose to end their lives.
So the plausible explanation into suicidal deaths should be sought not in an underlying mental problem but in ‘transition’ - the personal side of change. It is not the changes themselves that cause people to end their lives but the process of coming to terms with the ‘change’. This process is known as ‘transition’.
Transition, according to change consultant William Bridges, is a three-phase psychological reorientation process that people go through when they are coming to terms with change. During this process of transition, people experience emotional meltdown. When people suffer emotional meltdown, they think that at least for the moment death feels preferable to continued futility. It feels as if there is nothing to look forward to.
Misinterpretation
Coupled with the emotional meltdown is misinterpretation of the voices and messages people hear when they are in transition. People confuse egocide with suicide.
Tolstoy calls ‘what people must let go of and yet refuse to let go of’ as their ‘truths’ and their ‘conclusions’. William Bridges calls them ‘outlooks’ or ‘assumptions’ or ‘realities’.
These are the things that make people feel at home in the world because “they have been woven, thread by thread into the fabric of their lives. People feel that walking away from them is walking away from life itself. Without them, the world would be strange and frightening.
Bridges noted that our society “talks a lot about change; but it seldom deals with transition. Unfortunately for us, it is the transition that blind-sides us and is often the source of our troubles.”
But transition is a good thing. The destination of transition is transformation. Unfortunately, in the absence of transition experts, a supportive network and professional advisors to guide people in transition, the opposite can happen.
People can develop new skills for negotiating the perilous passage across the ‘nowhere’ that separates the ‘old life’ situation from the ‘new’ by attending transition Planning UK’s ‘Managing Life Transition Workshop’ on (Dates, Location & Cost TBC)
ENDS
Notes to editors
For further information including interviews and case studies please contact TPUK Founder & Director Simon Aidoo on 07456 088 439 or 0203 239 165 or
email simon@transitionplanninguk.com.
@simon_transpuk
About Transition Planning UK LTD
Transition Planning UK (TPUK) is a leading business & personal transition planning; coaching & organisational transition; training solutions and consultancy provider.
Using a unique methodology, TPUK helps business owners, executives and professionals to make a smooth transition from their careers and businesses into a post-career life.
To find out more, visit the TPUK website: www.transitionplanninguk.com