Trigger Warning: The following article includes references to suicide, mental health struggles, and crises. Readers who may find such content triggering are advised to proceed with care.
That a ventilation of their suicidal ideations with a trustworthy, non-judgemental, empathetic/empathic counsellor can be healing and positively life-altering for those who find themselves at the end of their rope is highlighted in Aditya Kripalani’s movie Not Today (NT). NT focuses on a poignant, albeit fictional, high-stakes, challenging late-evening telephonic conversation Aliah Rupawala (Rucha Inamdar), a twenty-four-year-old rookie crisis helpline volunteer, has with Ashwin Mathur, alias Arjun (Harsh Chhaya), who needs therapeutic intervention.
Aliah gives it her all to convince Ashwin, an otherwise strong-willed, middle-aged (ironically) veteran suicide prevention counsellor who isn’t within her proximity, of not succumbing to his suicidal thoughts and to momentarily restore him to “a state of equilibrium” (Granello, p.170). This paper studies the strategies Aliah employs to make Ashwin abandon his suicide plans.
Meticulous Assessment of the Suicidal Client
No sooner Aliah receives Ashwin’s text and voice messages about his intention to jump to death from the terrace parapet than she begins evaluating her client’s safety. Approaching Ashwin’s call as a case of emergency, she begins enquiring about his current emotions, causes for his disillusionment with life that are persuading him to end his life and his current location to rescue him.
Based on her video call with Ashwin, Aliah notes that he looks “unkempt, messy, no social interaction”. These adjectives indicate self-neglect. Aliah makes note of Ashwin’s current depressive and chaotic internal affective state, “What made him cry?” Ashwin is grieving his daughter Anupama’s death by suicide. Tormented by guilt and self-loathing because he couldn’t prevent his daughter’s suicide and became a mute witness to her self-inflicted death via the video phone call, Ashwin considers committing suicide as a befitting form of retribution. As a counsellor, Ashwin would have helped the distressed overcome their suicidal thoughts. However, being in a state of “‘emotional dysregulation’” (Linehan as quoted in Schechter, et. al., p.4), Ashwin can’t think rationally and feels that suicide will free him from his psychological trauma and turmoil.
Ashwin’s personal narrative is “self-critical” (Schechter, et. al., p.8). He tells Aliah about his troubled childhood, thanks to his mother’s early demise and his alcoholic and moody father. He felt ashamed about his “drunkard” father and thought of himself as a failure in his school days. Ashwin and his wife Rati’s collaborative efforts had won them accolades in the advertising field, and this success had given him an ounce of joy and self-belief. However, following his father’s death, Ashwin became addicted to alcohol. After undergoing de-addiction-cum-rehabilitation at Alcoholics Anonymous, Ashwin had turned into a counsellor.
Ashwin’s counselling centre, “Not Today”, was on the verge of closure. Long before he knew, Ashwin’s alcoholism and emotional unavailability had strained his relationship with his wife and daughter. His failure to be a responsible son and his incompetence to save Anupama, despite being qualified as a counsellor, to him are a confirmation of his “maladaptive beliefs” (Schechter, et. al., p.7) about himself. Feeling rejected by his kin and with his wife and daughter dead, Ashwin is vulnerable to states of disorganisation and experiences of aloneness and rumination.
“Unconditional Positive Regard” for the Client (Rogers)
As a suicide crisis interventionist, Aliah has to replace Ashwin’s feelings of suicidal despair with the desire for self-preservation. Initially, Aliah conducts her therapeutic intervention complying with her Centre Hum Sunenge’s rules. Aliah chooses Insiyah as her alias and tries to “lead” the therapeutic dialogue’s direction and outcome. However, when adherence to the Centre’s “authoritarian” (Granello, p.171) style of therapy fails to build an empathic connection with Ashwin, Aliah flouts the rules by divulging her personal details to him. Aliah’s flexibility and willingness to adapt to Ashwin’s preferred “quid pro quo” or more “collaborative” (Granello, p.171) style of therapy, which subverts the therapist (expert)-client (patient) hierarchy, is apparently perceived as validating by Ashwin, and this helps strengthen their therapeutic alliance.
Aliah’s “empathetic” (Rogers) tone doesn’t make Ashwin feel minimised or demeaned. That Aliah asks him for his inputs on psychological counselling empowers him with a sense that he is not expendable and is competent enough to effect positive change in society. By confessing his guilt to Aliah, who is almost his daughter’s age, apparently Ashwin seeks to be forgiven for neglecting his fatherly obligations. When Aliah entreats Ashwin to give her a chance to help him, he tells her, “It seems like you feel what you say.
That’s good. And you also know what effect your words have on the other person.” Even though Ashwin and Aliah don’t share the same physical space, like a counselling room, she can convince him about her “genuine” friendly, “affective” and “cognitive” (implicit and direct) “involvement” (Schechter, et. al., p.10) and engagement in the alleviation of his psychological pain and suffering.
Aliah is “integrated” (Rogers) in her interactions with Ashwin, which makes him feel heard and understood. Initially, when Ashwin snaps at her or asks her intrusive questions, she becomes flustered, but doesn’t emotionally withdraw from him. Recognising that her presence, albeit virtual, is crucial to keep Ashwin safe, she stays connected with him (even when travelling) via the mobile phone until his suicide risk abates. Not desiring to lose contact with him even for a second, she deliberately switches to conference call when she calls up her mother and her friend.
Her visits to Ashwin’s old haunts across Mumbai at night are meant not only to reassure him that she is genuinely interested in his life story but also as a ploy to get closer to his current location, and her long, drawn-out conversations are a tactic to make Ashwin delay acting upon his decision to commit suicide. Her well-meant actions and words make Ashwin accept her as “a positive introject” (Schechter, et. al., p.10), encouraging him to open up to her about his troubles.
To motivate and make Ashwin comfortable speaking about his life history and divulge the reasons for his suicidality, Aliah discloses to Ashwin about her personal agony caused by the suicide of her Bohri orphanage’s iconoclastic guardian and mentor that motivates her to work as a crisis volunteer; her practice of atheism and her unwilling, but complaisant submission to the rules of her particularly observant Bohri foster parents.
To keep Ashwin “invested” (Granello, p.170) in the intervention, Aliah asks him to narrate any uplifting case history he had come across in his counselling career. He narrates the inspiring and moving story of Henry, a suicidal, depressed adult-orphan who was rescued from near-death and brought for rehabilitation to his Centre by Vaishali, a fishmonger. Post-rehabilitation, Henry bonded with Vaishali and her family.
When Ashwin is determined to commit suicide, Aliah reminds him of Henry’s story to make him realise suicide as an undesirable way of coping with hopelessness and to be optimistic about befriending benevolent strangers. To make Ashwin believe in the possibilities of forging deep emotional bonds with people with whom he has no umbilical ties and in finding purpose and joy in life through “a re-engagement in relationships” (Schechter, et. al., p.4) and reintegration in society, Aliah says, “You don’t deserve this [suicide]. [. . .]. So many people would want a father like you, sir.”
Besides emotionally supporting Ashwin overcome his regret and shame, Aliah offers a unique perspective on his past behaviour and bygone life events. She doesn’t dismiss him as a bad/worthless person because of his alcoholism. Having recognised that Ashwin’s self-centeredness and inability to engage with sustainable familial relationships owe a lot to his experiencing parental neglect in his childhood, Aliah exonerates Ashwin from feeling guilty about being responsible for Anupama’s suicide. Frightened that Ashwin is feeling overwhelmed to kill himself, Aliah tells him to postpone his suicide—“not today”.
Thereby, Aliah creates “a therapeutic window” (Granello, p.172), hoping that deferring (and not foreclosing) suicide will, for the time being, help him move through the acute suicidal crisis period and give him time to think of and adopt constructive coping-with-despair mechanisms. The fictive filial relationship she forges with Ashwin by sending him the father-daughter emoji accompanying the “Not Today” text message and her acceptance of him despite his moral failings motivate him to retract his decision to commit suicide.
The therapeutic intervention-cum-dialogue, wherein Ashwin and Aliah confide their personal woes in each other, ultimately proves curative/cathartic for both of them. The negative, alienating interpersonal experience with Anupama had filled Ashwin with despair. On the contrary, a positive interpersonal experience with Aliah has instilled hope in him, thereby encouraging him to relinquish his suicidal thoughts.
Read More: Understanding Gatekeeping: A Crucial Strategy in Suicide Prevention
Challenges Faced by the Counsellor
Fearing that Aliah is incompetent to contend with negative “countertransference [tial] emotions” (Granello, p.171) like anxiety, self-doubt, fear, helplessness that Ashwin is likely to elicit in her, Aliah’s mentor Mamata assigns an experienced volunteer to counsel Ashwin and arranges for a “downloading session” with Aliah to support her in processing any difficult, negative emotions she may be experiencing following her conversation with Ashwin. Although a counselling volunteer must remain insulated from their callers’ emotional upheavals, Aliah cannot remain unaffected by Ashwin’s anguish. That regret and guilt will haunt Aliah if she were to fail to talk Ashwin out of his desire to kill himself is suggested in her text message to him.
Conclusions
NT does offer a positive, affirming portrayal of a therapist’s role in supporting a person deal with their suicidal thoughts. However, emulating Aliah’s a bit over-zealous work rigour, emotional intimacy with her client and her willingness to do anything to meet Ashwin’s needs, no matter what and her ever-availability/out-of-office crisis intervention/therapy sessions, for real-life therapists will be arduous and unreasonable.
Moreover, Aliah’s acceptance of Ashwin’s suggestion to take a cigarette break with him during their video call is unbecoming for a therapist. Although satisfying the client’s whims might help the therapist build rapport with them, a real-life therapist may not engage in an unhealthy practice like cigarette smoking with their clients during therapy sessions.
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