Youth Suicide as a “Wild” Problem: Implications for Prevention Practice

The intent of this article is to explore the idea that youth suicide –which is conceptualized here as an unstable, historically contingent, and unruly problem – cannot be solved, nor contained, through an exclusive reliance on pre-determined, universal or standardized interventions. Informed by a constructionist perspective, social problems like youth suicide are understood as constituted through language and other relational practices. Based on a close reading of the mainstream school-based suicide prevention literature it is argued that youth suicide has largely been constructed as a “tame problem,” and this in turn places certain limits on what might be thought, said or done in response. By re-imagining youth suicide as a “wild” and unstable problem that is deeply embedded in local, historical, and relational contexts, more expansive possibilities for thinking, learning and responding might become available. Implications for school-based suicide prevention are discussed.