The project De Janeiro a Janeiro, promoted by the Applied Psychology Service (Sepa) of UFRN, releases, this Wednesday, the 28th, a video that discusses the theme of child deaths caused by suicide. The video is available on the initiative's social networks. The presentation is given by Manuella Bila, master in psychology from the Postgraduate Program in Psychology (PPGPSI), whose study covers the theme of phenomenological-existential understandings about the experience of suicide in childhood: “And does it exist?”. The work was guided by professor Ana Karina Silva Azevedo, also a scholar in the area of suicide prevention.
According to Manuella Bila, the idea was born from work on the Acolher extension project. The action carries out work with children and adolescents who are in institutional care units. Manuella says that she accompanied children who exhibited suicidal behavior and also completed suicide, as well as adults who sought psychological care and later recognized suffering that originated in childhood.
In the video, Manuella explains that one should not look for single reasons to understand suicide, as this means simplifying a complex phenomenon. She reports that, in research with children, it was possible to understand it as the unveiling of suffering that reveals a lack of rootedness, belonging and acceptance in the world. “The participating children brought in their narratives loneliness as a mark of a time and the difficulty of being heard”, he says.
Anuska Alencar, project coordinator, states that learning about the topics through videos can alert people and encourage people to seek help or even understand problems. “We have already talked about anxiety, the influence of meditative practices on anxiety, basic education parameters and the impact on the mental health of people with cognitive impairment”, he adds.
The action De Janeiro a Janeiro began in April this year as a continuation of the White January campaign at UFRN. The initiative works to publicize actions on mental health and research carried out in the area through videos published each month, with the theme chosen by the project members. “The videos brought by the project from April until now deal with various topics, from the mental health of undergraduate students during the pandemic to reflections on teleworking”, explains Anuska Alencar.
Karen Sousa from Agecom/UFRN