A threat of suicide from a client needed fast, firm action, says Indian therapist Ajit Harisinghani, who describes a very direct way of helping a client in distress.

The telephone rang. Rahul, 20, phoned to wish me good-bye. He said he was in his father's sports equipment workshop and he had cyanide powder in his hands and was about to commit suicide! Some weeks back, Rahul visited me every day for five extended sessions of therapy. He was a personable young man, polite and courteous. He spoke good English and Hindi. All through our therapy sessions, Rahul was intensely uneasy and only gradually did he open up his heart to share his hurt and distress. He held his father totally responsible for his problems, including his stammering, blaming him for being inconsiderate, critical and dominant. After a couple of sessions, it had become apparent that he saw the speech 'problem' as part of the cross he had to carry - a load he was landed with, because of his father's behaviour and actions. He saw himself as a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Doctors had dismissed his problems as 'only psychological'. His stammering became worse.

Previously, I had planned out his self-therapy schedule. He had gone back home, practiced regularly and had reported a significant improvement in his speech fluency. During phone conversations he had sounded thrilled with his progress. Now, here was Rahul, about to commit suicide and was calling to bid a final adieu to me and to the world! He said, "Goodbye. I just wanted to thank you for all you did, but I can't take it any more. I want to die." "Rahul", I said, "Thank you very much for calling me. I'm flattered that you thought of talking with me at this momentous time in your life - the time of your death. I can't wish you all the best, or even a bon voyage - because I don't know what happens to souls who have committed suicide. Do they regret it? Want to reverse it, but can't?" I told him I had some thoughts on this which would prepare him for his 'trip' and if he liked, he could defer committing his suicide for a week. He could come say his good-byes in person. "In any case", I pointed out "No one is really waiting for you 'up there'. In fact they're not expecting your arrival for many more decades". The lightness and humour in the tone of my voice must have surprised him. Maybe he had expected that I would panic and try to stop him from killing himself. Maybe that was the reason he had called me in the first place - to get some dramatic attention. After all, he was ending his life and wanted at least one onlooker. He then said he was throwing away the cyanide and he agreed to come wish me a personal good-bye, if only to humour me!

And Rahul came back to Pune. He looked healthy but not happy. Almost from the first minute, he dived into the sea of his misery and came up with 'problems' every time he surfaced. 'FATHER' was written over most of them. After two sessions the problems kept coming up unabated. I advised him to write out all his problems, and bring me this complete list the next day. "Even the 'smaller' problems should be on tomorrow's list." The venue for that session was to be the lovely hills of Vetal Tekdi which are a spectacular location - very unlike the closed-room ambience of my clinic. I was on the hill-top in time to see him walking dejectedly towards me. The droop of his shoulders and the tense make-up of his face presented a palpable picture of misery. He radiated a 'poor me' attitude. And he had brought his list - all four tightly-packed A4 sized pages of it. He told me he had been at it all night long. I took out my lighter, held the list away from me and clicked it afire. It took a full minute but the breeze helped decimate his carefully written thesis.

"There go your problems" I told him. I affected a casual voice and a pleasant expression on my face but inside I was not sure which way this would go from here. Would it shake him off his track of self-pity or would he get angry and hysterical? I kept my voice factual and dived deeper. "If you hate your father so much, give him up. You carry him in your thoughts wherever you go. Drop him. Change your name, your surname. Don't take any money from him. It's unfair to him that you depend on him for everything you have and need, and then turn around, not to thank him, but to curse and belittle him. You're being unfair to you too. You need to give yourself an opportunity to let your self-confidence grow." He cut me short to say, "But you promised not to attempt to stop me. I'm here just to wish you good-bye. I am planning to commit suicide, remember?"

Was that gloating I heard in his voice, or was I just imagining it?

"I just want us to decide who or what are we trying to kill here," I said. "Who is our intended victim?" Rahul said he didn't understand what I was trying to say.

"You don't hate your legs do you? Or your eyes? What about your arms? Your liver? Your hair? You have no real grouse against them, do you? So why kill these innocent organs? Although it is your psychological pressures that are driving you to end it all, you will also be killing your physical body which has given you no problems whatsoever. Try to let go of your personal history and design a new, healthier attitude for yourself. Be who you want to be not who you have to be. Don't be your father's son, if only until you feel you deserve him."

For the two weeks he was here, Rahul changed his name to Vikrant. He, a son of a rich businessman, took up a job as a hotel waiter. As a waiter, he was on his feet all day long. He suffered indignities from some brash young customers and saw himself in them. And he also enjoyed the meagre fruits of his hard labour. He lived a life-style totally alien to him. For two weeks, he had no time off even for his speech sessions with me. For two weeks his job allowed him no time to feed his self-pity. I lost touch with him after that, but some months later, he calls me from Nigeria where he is the sales manager in a car agency. Vikrant is now his official name (he's changed it legally). He sounds like a confident, normal, intelligent guy. His speech is significantly more fluent. He told me he's getting married. His father has arranged the match. The tone he uses when he talks about his father is devoid of the hate it had carried not 10 months back. I don't have to ask, it is obvious that father and son are coming closer to each other. He said my action of burning his problems away had been the key that had opened up his mind, locked as it had been in a 'depression' mode. He was released. He had served his sentence and come out stronger. And now, Rahul. I mean....Vikrant is back on equal footing with the rest of us, on this wild, mad, fantastic emotional roller-coaster adventure which is what our lives really are.

(names have been changed to protect privacy)

Ajit Harisinghani, MS (USA), CCC-Sp, is a speech therapist in Pune, India.
Email: speechfoundation@vsnl.net
Website: www.speechfoundation.com

From the Summer 2005 edition of Speaking Out