Author on Increase in Suicides: All Human Beings Have Natural Psychological Needs and We’re Not Meeting Those Needs

RUSH EXCERPT:

HARI: "I wanted to understand that myself, I had periods of being acutely suicidal. I wanted to — one of the reasons why this shocking news about the increase in suicide is everyone watching your show knows they have natural physical needs. You need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air, if you took those things away from you you would be in trouble fast. There’s equally strong evidence that all human beings have natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong, like your life has meaning and purpose. You need to know you have a future that makes sense. We’ve been getting less and less good at meeting these deep underlying psychological needs. If it’s not the only thing that’s going on but it’s the reason why this crisis is growing. What we’ve got to do if we want to find our way out of this is understand the causes of depression and anxiety. And solve those problems, not just drug people of their drugs, that’s not the solution. "