How to Help

How to provide assistance to a mildly/moderately troubled person.
You can choose to help them in any of the following ways:

• Directly address the behavior or issue you observe.
• Tell them how it affects you.
• Consult with your primary care provider.
• Refer the person to the NHCA BH Department.

Guidelines for talking with a person in distress:

• Accept and respect what is said.
• Help determine what needs to be done or changed.
• Try to focus on an aspect of the problem that is manageable.
• Avoid giving advice, judging, evaluating, and criticizing.
• Avoid easy answers such as, "Everything will be all right."
• Help identify resources needed to improve things.
• Help the person recall constructive methods used in the past to cope; get the person to agree to do something constructive to change things.
• Offer yourself as a caring person until professional assistance has been obtained.
• Trust your insight and reactions.
• Let others know your concerns.
• Attempt to address the person's needs and seek appropriate resources.
• Avoid contributing unnecessarily to the person's guilt or sense of failure.
• Do not swear secrecy or offer confidentiality to the person.
• Encourage the person to seek help.
• When called for, let the person know you are worried about their safety.
• It is important to remember that talking about suicide is a cry for help and is not to be ignored. It is also important to remember that by asking about suicide you will never "plant" the idea in their head.

Dispel myths about seeking help, such as "I will be seen as weak" or "It will ruin my military career.