NZ: Funeral shock for suicide families
Funeral shock for suicide families
05 March 2004
By SID PICKERING
An unqualified counsellor has been turning up uninvited to the funerals of Hamilton people who have committed suicide, warning other family members could be next to take their lives.
Jack Gielen's New Zealand Suicide Prevention Trust, which operates only in the Waikato, has been labelled "dangerous" and "inappropriate" by other counselling groups and the Youth Development Ministry.
Sharyn Kerr first met Mr Gielen at her 16-year-old son's funeral in December.
After the service, he came back to Ms Kerr's house for the wake where he circulated among family members for two hours.
Mr Gielen did not approach Ms Kerr until he was about to leave. He told her he feared Ms Kerr's elder son might go on to commit suicide.
Ms Kerr told the Waikato Times she was shocked by Mr Gielen's advance.
"You're traumatised anyway. For someone to be saying that might happen is too much."
Mr Gielen later gave Ms Kerr's sister-in-law, Morna Kerr, a training booklet and encouraged her to set up a counselling group in her hometown of Te Awamutu. "I could have been anyone, he didn't do a police check or anything," Morna Kerr said.
The booklet stresses the need for counsellors to go through "cleansing rituals" after speaking with relatives of the bereaved. These include sprinkling yourself with water, symbolically flicking away negative energy, and "lying on your back in the cruciform position, lying in the wounds of Jesus".
Youth Development Ministry suicide prevention national co-ordinator Sue van Daatselaar said the trust's literature was not backed by any research. The trust had misrepresented suicide rates in New Zealand and wrongly blamed the increasing rates of suicide on feminism and political correctness.
The trust has been handing out wallet-sized cards featuring an 0800 number on the front, and a list of organisations on the back. But some of those ???- Hamilton's Rape and Sexual Abuse Healing Centre, Relationship Services, and the Union of Fathers ???- have all asked to be removed from the card.
Suicide Prevention Information New Zealand, an organisation contracted by the Government to provide information about suicide prevention, said the trust's methods were not ethical.
Manager Merryn Stathan said the practice of counsellors attending funerals uninvited was "dangerous" because the counsellor would not know what emotional state the family was in.
The trust was included with a range of other community groups in Waikato District Health Board meetings last year designed to plan suicide prevention strategies.
Project manager Grant O'Brien said it made a valuable contribution to the discussion, despite the fact that the other groups present did not agree with its methods.
"We involved them in that exercise because they are a stakeholder in that area of health. They supposedly meet a need ???- they have a client base, so I suppose people find them useful."
None of the trust's suggestions in the meeting was used in the strategy, but it encouraged the board to consider a more "lateral" approach, Mr O'Brien said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2836607a10,00.html
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