DIGNITAS' Advisory Concept: Building a Bridge

Anyone may get in touch with DIGNITAS, no matter what their reason. And in the frame of DIGNITAS resources, everyone receives advice and support. This includes guidance on health care advance directives (advance decisions), directing people at an acute risk of suicide towards crisis intervention centres, giving guidance on palliative care, providing information about other helping organizations as well as expert physicians, etc.

DIGNITAS focuses on giving advice adapted to the individual situation. The common denominator for anyone doing such advisory work should be:

1. break the taboo surrounding suffering, suicide and death;

2. be there and listen;

3. take people seriously;

4. talk openly and honestly with them;

5. do not shunt then into the "mentally-ill corner" or stigmatise them in any other way;

6. talk in a fact-oriented way, especially about suicide and the high risks of failed suicide attempts; and

7. provide advice in a comprehensive and open-outcome manner, that is in all directions.

#DIGNITAS pamphlet