Choose Life

Interview with Dr. Jane Burns
Written by Michael Short- February 14, 2011

The pain caused by the suicide of a young person is almost too terrible to imagine, certainly too terrible to be adequately described. Words so often elude us here. But we need to talk about youth suicide, not avoid it in the misguided belief that keeping it taboo somehow shelters people in difficulty from dangerous thoughts. Only through appropriate discussion can we cement the crucial concept that young people have many options - and suicide is not one of them.

Dr. Jane Burns is in The Zone to help all of us talk about it (the full transcript of our conversation is at: www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-zone). This mother of three young children can be seen as a crusader for young people, a researcher who broke with traditional academia to work with the young to give them tools and knowledge to confront and combat life's inevitable difficulties.

Click here to read more and listen to the interview