--- title: Suicide and Depression: Suicide Risk Drops 25% After Talk Therapy description: A new study in Lancet Psychiatry finds that intervening with talk therapy after a suicide attempt has some amazing long-term effects canonical: https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/ author: Mandy Oaklander article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-11-24T17:07:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T02:19:14.704Z article:section: Health og:title: Suicide and Depression: Suicide Risk Drops 25% After Talk Therapy og:description: A new study in Lancet Psychiatry finds that intervening with talk therapy after a suicide attempt has some amazing long-term effects og:url: https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Suicide and Depression: Suicide Risk Drops 25% After Talk Therapy twitter:description: A new study in Lancet Psychiatry finds that intervening with talk therapy after a suicide attempt has some amazing long-term effects twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Suicide Risk Drops 26% After Talk Therapy > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 24, 2014 5:07 PM UTC  by [Mandy Oaklander](https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/)  ## Mandy Oaklander Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME. Nov 24, 2014 5:07 PM UTC Suicide is a problem with few concrete preventive solutions, but a new [study](http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2814%2900083-2/abstract) in _Lancet Psychiatry_ finds that intervening with talk therapy after a suicide attempt seems to have some amazing long-term effects. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health looked at data from about 65,000 people who had attempted suicide between 1992-2010 in Denmark. The country opened suicide clinics in 1992 and provided them nationwide in 2007, and some of the people had gone to one of these clinics and received 6-10 sessions of talk therapy. The rest of the people did not. When the researchers analyzed the data after a 20-year follow-up, those who had received the talk intervention fared much better. They repeated acts of self-harm less frequently and had a lower risk of death by any cause, including death by suicide. After five years, there were 26% fewer suicides in the group who received therapy than in the other group. About 145 suicide attempts and 30 suicides were prevented in the talk therapy group, the researchers estimated. “People who present with deliberate self-harm constitute a high-risk group for later suicidal behavior and fatal outcomes, so preventive efforts are important; yet, implemented specialized support after self-harm is rare,” the researchers wrote in the study. Though the study had a long follow-up period and population size, it was not a randomized controlled trial, but such an intervention would be ethically impossible, the study authors write. “These findings might be the best evidence available and provide a sound basis for policy makers who wish to limit suicidal behavior and fatal events in an accessible high-risk group, which, in many countries, receives little support.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/"},"headline":"Suicide Risk Drops 26% After Talk Therapy","datePublished":"2014-11-24T17:07:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T02:19:14.704Z","description":"A new study in Lancet Psychiatry finds that intervening with talk therapy after a suicide attempt has some amazing long-term effects","url":"https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/","keywords":["Mental Health/Psychology","Depression","Mental Health","Suicide","Therapy"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mandy Oaklander","jobTitle":"Oaklander is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mandy-oaklander/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/mental-healthpsychology/","name":"Mental Health/Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3602104/suicide-risk-talk-therapy/","name":"Suicide Risk Drops 26% After Talk Therapy"}}]}] ```