The Telephone as a “Therapeutic Instrument”: The Establishment of Suicide and Crisis Hotlines in Canada, ca. 1961–1979

Abstract

Suicide rose in importance as a major public health concern in post-war Canada, concurrent with the relative decline of infant and childhood mortality and the rise of the behavioural sciences. In response to a perceived crisis in suicides during the 1960s and 1970s, a new technology—the rotary telephone—was reconceived as a “therapeutic instrument” to reach people in crisis. Voluntary and religious groups began establishing “suicide hotlines” across the country as a participatory public health intervention aimed at saving lives. However, as suicide rates continued their seemingly inexorable rise, suicide hotlines witnessed a discursive transformation, away from a goal of reducing suicide rates and toward mental health crisis intervention more broadly.