English lifeline helping out both foreigners, Japanese

By Maya Kaneko

TOKYO —

With suicides topping 30,000 for the 12th consecutive year in 2009, the international community has not proved immune to the mental health challenges posed by this stressful country, and the prolonged economic downturn has only made problems worse.

Tokyo English Life Line, which has been providing free and anonymous English-language telephone counseling for more than 35 years, extends a helping hand to both expatriates and Japanese facing depression, suicide temptation, problems in cultural adjustment, relationships and the workplace, as well as health concerns.
A nonprofit organization, TELL is associated with the Japanese-language telephone counseling service Inochi no Denwa and has about 90 volunteer counselors in their 20s to 70s who handle up to 7,000 calls a year. Depression was the top reason for help calls in 2008.
The service is open 365 days a year from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m., and knowledge of it has spread mainly by word of mouth among the diplomatic and business communities, as well as international schools, according to Linda Semlitz, a U.S. psychiatrist who serves as clinical director of TELL’s community counseling service. Read more here....