HIGH-VOLTAGE emotional family dramas on big and small screens are playing havoc with the weaker sex the same way Superman and Batman did with the young fans.
“This must stop if we want to stem suicidal tendencies from finding social expression,” warned visual psychiatrists on the second day of the national CME of Indian Psychiatry Society organised at Scientific Convention Centre on Sunday.
The visual impact of a hero or heroin attempting suicide gives handy tips to people, especially the weaker sex, who get convinced that ending life is the only solution to their problems. There is need for some more screen discipline to avoid domino effect, they said.
“Apart from big screen movies, family dramas also bring us cases of suicidal attempts. Most of the cases that rooted from the serials were of women who had the impact from the characters burning themselves with fuel like kerosene,” said Dr Lakshmi Vijayakumar of the International Association for Suicide Prevention.
Going by the increase in the number of suicide cases of women resulting out of movies and small screen dramas, “we spoke to some of the film producers and serial directors to stop promoting suicides in their work.”
Her team spoke to some of the top producers, like K Balachandran and others on the issue and “they promised us support.”
{{/usCountry}}Her team spoke to some of the top producers, like K Balachandran and others on the issue and “they promised us support.”
{{/usCountry}}“Down south, we succeeded in reducing suicidal presentation in films and serials but the need is for a proper study on suicide attempt by females and that all producers in the country avoid such screening,” she said.
Dr Shubhangi Parkar, while delivering her lecture on the social and clinical correlates of suicide said the reasons for suicide ranged from financial problems, interpersonal relationships, feeling of worthlessness and alienation in the family.
“A psychiatrist needs to find out those reasons to diagnose correctly the problem. Mere going with medicines would not work,” Dr Parkar said.
She said if a woman is dissatisfied with her family, only then she would succumb to suicidal pressure and pick up ways glorified in the serials. Thus the reason behind her attempt is important to check her mental illness from going further at a stage of the feeling of worthlessness.