Every September, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month prompts campaigns and reminders to “check in” on the people around us. And while those reminders are important, they often oversimplify what real support looks like.
For example, listening is often framed as a soft skill or passive gesture, but it’s one of the most effective acts of care we can offer someone. It can be the difference between someone feeling seen or slipping further into despair.
There are moments when someone hints that they’re struggling. A message that arrives late at night, a comment that seems out of step, or a sudden withdrawal from conversation. These changes might not come with any dramatic signs, and sometimes they’re masked with humour or an abrupt change of subject. But when someone lets us in – even a little – how we respond matters a lot.
When that door opens, many people want to help, but the urge to do something – offer a fix, say the right thing, or cheer someone up – can get in the way of what’s actually needed. And what’s needed, more often than not, is a presence that feels steady and without judgement.
Many of us have heard the message, “Just be there – don’t try to fix the person.” But what does that actually look like?
Firstly, it means resisting the instinct to offer advice or encouragement too quickly. It means staying with your own unease when someone shares something raw or painful. It means not jumping straight to what they still have to live for: “But you’ve got friends.” “Don’t think like that.” “Look on the bright side.” These responses often shut down the potential for the conversation the person was trying to begin.
Listening well is less about what you say, and more about how you stay. Can you allow the other person space to speak without trying to move them somewhere more comfortable? Often, this is done more to ease our own discomfort than the other person’s.
That doesn’t mean we need to be silent, but we can respond in ways that show we really are present:
- “That sounds incredibly heavy.”
- “I don’t know what to say, but I’m here for you.”
- “Thank you for trusting me with that.”
Good listening is a kind of containment, which means we’re not absorbing someone’s pain, but we are making room for it so they don’t have to hold it alone. When someone feels like their world is coming apart, being met with that kind of grounded steadiness – even without solutions – can be life-saving.
Psychologist Carl Rogers popularised the idea of unconditional positive regard – the belief that healing begins when a person feels deeply seen and accepted, as they are. But as psychiatry professor Jonathan Shedler points out, the phrase has often been misunderstood. “No one can unconditionally view another person positively,” he writes. “Those aren’t options for humans.” Instead, he offers a more direct version:
“There is love in setting aside our own needs to listen, truly listen, and understand our client as deeply as possible, and love, too, in holding in mind the person they could become, even especially when they cannot.”
Though Shedler speaks from a the perspective of psychotherapy, this kind of presence isn’t exclusive to therapists. You don’t need training to listen well. You just need to care enough to stay with steadiness, rather than jumping to fix and solve, or cheer someone up. That’s the difference that matters most.
There’s a misconception that suicide prevention is all about emergency hotlines and crisis response. Those things are crucial, but they can come at the end of a long road. What keeps many people going, long before that point is simple, ordinary connection. A friend who checks in, a colleague who notices, or a loved one who listens, not to fix, but to witness and make room for what the other is going through.
At Relate Malaysia, our therapists practise this kind of listening every day, but it’s not just a therapeutic skill – it’s something we can all do. You don’t need the perfect words, you just need to stay with the person in front of you long enough for them to know they’re not alone.
Often, this is what helps someone stay.
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