From the author: Speech at a regional conference on the work of a helplineTeenage suicideAccording to official statistics, the number of suicides of children and adolescents under 14 years of age in Russia from 2000 to 2010 decreased by half (from 500 to 240) , and the number of suicides in the winter of 2011-2012 does not exceed the norms of recent years, that is, there is no surge in teenage suicide. On the other hand, according to WHO data, 11 suicide cases per 100 thousand population are considered a critical level, more than 20 suicides per 100 thousand are considered high ., and in Russia this figure is four times higher - up to 40 cases of suicide per 100 thousand population. Distracting from the topic of suicide, let us remember that in 2011 alone, 1,761 children died at the hands of close relatives. Teenage suicide cannot but worry the community of psychologists. I know that in small Alushta (Crimea, Ukraine) alone there were several teenage suicides in the fall of 2011, and that the authorities’ reaction to this tragedy revived the hopes of specialists for the resuscitation of the helpline service in Ukraine. There were cases of teenage suicide in Siberia, in central Russia, in our region - in the Tula region and in Tula. In February 2012, there was a professional forum on the Internet “I will punish you with my death!”, Discussing the results of the Moscow press conference of experts (representatives of medicine and clergy, PSYCHOLOGISTS WERE NOT INVITED) dated February 14, 2012 on the topic: “In Russia, cases of teenage suicides have become more frequent. How to keep children from taking a tragic step? The role of family, school and church" Moscow experts came to the conclusion that "Suicides of children and adolescents can be prevented by showing love and attention in the family and reforming the system of psychological assistance to minors at the state level." The roots of the problem of suicide among children and adolescents, according to experts, are in the one-sided orientation of state family policy only towards material assistance and the absence of its spiritual component. Children and teenagers do not have the opportunity to get the necessary help within walking distance at the right time. Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church are convinced that suicide is a moral state problem, and that children need to be raised with guidelines for the value of human life. Moscow's chief child psychiatrist Anna Portnova called suicide a passive protest, a child's escape from an unbearable situation and noted that for many years Russia has shared first place with Belarus and Lithuania in the number of suicides. Participants in the press conference also noted the negative impact of computer games on children and adolescents cultivating cruelty, the “immortality” of heroes and dulling the sense of reality. The media, especially television, add fuel to the fire: relishing aggression, cruelty, thematic teleconferences and TV shows, news reminiscent of reports from the battlefield, devalue human life and are, no matter how cynically, a kind of instruction, an algorithm for action. The result is high-profile suicides, crimes, robberies similar to stories on TV channels. The influence of the Werther Phenomenon on the suicide of teenagers Teenage suicide as a “hot thing” is excitedly exaggerated by the media, while journalists cannot help but know about the Werther Phenomenon. Sociologist David Phillips from the University of California in the late 70s of the last century published shocking research results: he found that after the publication of media reports about suicide, a streak of disasters begins: planes crash, the number of road accidents increases, the number of disaster victims and the number of suicides increases sharply. What can connect isolated suicides and a whole series of accidents? The media do not report on all tragedies, but on the deaths of famous people, singers, movie stars, and politicians. It can be assumed that the feeling of loss and grief forces a person to weaken control over the safety of life, which leads to tragedy. But media reports about suicide or the death of one person give rise to disasters in which individuals die, andreports of cases of collective suicide lead to tragedies with the death of many people, which does not resemble the pain of loss. Phillips called this pattern the Werther phenomenon, named after the hero of Goethe’s novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther.” More than two centuries ago, this novel shocked all of Europe. Goethe admitted that he was forced to end the book with the suicide of the hero in order to save himself from the attraction to suicide. Wherever the novel was published, the number of suicides increased sharply, so in some countries the novel was banned, and Goethe himself was accused of witchcraft. Phillips found that people are influenced not so much by the fact of suicide itself, but by the information disseminated about it, and accidents can considered a kind of self-destruction. During the research, it was found that the media, writers and film directors are largely to blame for the death of many people and rampant crime. Phillips also noticed a strange pattern, the rhythmicity of the negative effect of the Werther phenomenon: the greatest danger exists after three or four days from the moment the negative is published. After about a week, the peak of accidents begins again, and by the eleventh day, the Werther phenomenon ceases its destructive effect... In connection with the Werther phenomenon, the epidemic of teenage suicides is also explained by the influence of media hype on this problem on teenagers. An excellent illustration of the Werther phenomenon came from a doctor on the Internet: in the media there was a series of “fires... and burns”... And just yesterday, 7 people were admitted to the burn department. Usually there are not even one or two a day; the week before, I had only six minor household burns on my site. I will punish you with my death. Researchers consider alcoholism, psychosocial stress, depression and an increase in the level of traditional risk factors to be the main causes of increased mortality in the population. Suicides depend on the general anxiety of society and uncertainty in society. There are many economic factors in childhood suicides, although suicide is not classified as a “disease” of low income or social disadvantage. During war, suicide is almost invisible; there is less suicide in dysfunctional families and in orphanages. In such conditions, children have no one to prove anything with their death, they are more resilient and grow up faster, suicides among this category of children and adolescents occur in more “serious” cases, as a rule, from the hopelessness of the situation, from unbearable resentment. In 60% of children and teenage suicide is a tragedy for prosperous, sensitive and intelligent children. People have forgotten that in nature the law of natural selection has not yet been abolished; the increase in suicidal cases among young people is the result of mental debility. The father yelled at the child - and the child does not know how to live further! There is a psychological defense mechanism “Death for fun”. When parents offend their children or are unfair to them, some children resort to this method of defense: “When I die, then you will know, then you will be sorry.” Children threaten their loved ones with death and imagine a picture of their death not from a desire to die - they want to “die temporarily” in order to see the grief of their parents, their feelings because they offended the child, to punish them with their death, and most importantly, to make sure “how they love me very much, forgive the offense and rise again.” Children's suicides are often loaded with a demonstrative attempt to attract attention to themselves. Confidence in immortality, which children come to around the age of 4-5 years, gives the child the opportunity to live without the daily fear of death, but it also has a downside - disdain for death! Children and teenagers are immortal, they do not realize the irreversibility of death, in the subconscious death is generally not acceptable to them personally - “others yes, but I don’t!” But the more often children have a reason to be offended by others, and the more often they use the defense mechanism “make-believe death”, the clearer and clearer the picture of their own death becomes, overgrown with details of the end of life, the picture is vivid, sometimes fantastic, because they are sure - is not.