Jerome Motto

Jerome Motto (October 16, 1921 – January 4, 2015) was an American psychiatrist who conducted the first suicide prevention intervention that reduced deaths by suicide, as proven through a randomized controlled trial.^[1] The study involved mailing short letters that expressed the researchers' interest in the recipients without pressuring them to take any action.

A caring letter sent by Motto to his patient

A caring letter written by hand

Motto's approach is sometimes called the "Caring Letters" model of suicide prevention.^[2][3] The technique involves letters sent from a researcher who had spoken at length with the recipient during a suicidal crisis.^[3] The typewritten form letters were brief – sometimes as short as two sentences – personally signed by the researcher, and expressed interest in the recipient without making any demands.^[3] They were initially sent monthly, eventually decreasing in frequency to quarterly letters; if the recipient wrote back, then an additional personal letter was mailed.^[3] The approach was partly inspired by Motto's experience of receiving letters during World War II from a young woman he had met before being deployed.^[1] Although the exact mechanisms have been debated, researchers generally think that they communicate a genuine interest and social connection that the recipients find helpful.^[3]

Caring letters are inexpensive and either the only,^[3] or one of very few,^[2] approaches to suicide prevention that has been scientifically proven to work during the first years after a suicide attempt that resulted in hospitalization.

Jerome Motto died on January 4, 2015, at Mills Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame, California.^[4]

Publications

• Motto, J. A. (1976). "Suicide prevention for high-risk persons who refuse treatment". Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 6 (4): 223–230. ISSN 0363-0234. PMID 1023455.