Avatars and the Prevention of Suicide among Adolescents

Abstract

This chapter describes the development and use of digital avatars in the prevention of suicide with teenagers and young adults. Twenty years ago, in November 1992, we created the first hospital unit in France specifically dedicated to caring for suicidal adolescents and young adults (Pommereau et al., 1994). Located downtown in a satel- lite building of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bordeaux, this unit and two others (a child psychiatry unit for pre-adolescents and a unit for anorexic and bulimic youths) form the Pôle Aquitain de l’Adolescent, which also includes a department for outpatient consul- tation. This 15-bed “suicidology” unit is an open institution that cares for suicidal adolescents brought in by emergency and intensive care services as a back-up to psychiatric care (80 per cent of the patients admitted), and young people admitted as a preventative measure following repeated serious behaviours that we consider suicidal, even if the person committing these acts does not recognize them as such (alcoholic comas, running away and threatening suicide, intentional reckless driving, unprotected or non-consensual sex, etc.). Stays are deliberately brief, around three weeks, and the multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and social workers has three objectives: (a) conduct a thorough medical-psychological assessment of the young patient, bringing in family members and speaking with them; (b) work on expressing emotions and suffering, both in one- on-one and group sessions; and (c) improve acceptance of psychiatric care so that this patient group, known for disregarding follow-up recommendations, becomes more cooperative with later outpatient care.