Suicide's continuing taboo,[5] embedded in cultural and religious condemnations of shame, guilt, self-blame and cowardice, magnified an underlying sense of worthlessness and hopelessness.
Farberow described this as a time of “attraction and excitement in the feeling that we were into a relatively unexplored area of vital community concern.”[2] The objective of the agency—to provide a center for the follow-up care of suicidal patients discharged after treatment in the Los Angeles County Hospital—changed in the first year as calls came in from people in crisis.
Capitalizing on the opportunity to intervene and avert a suicide attempt broadened the center's objective to include crisis intervention[8] and 24-hour accessibility of professionals or rigorously trained non-professionals.
[12] As the LASPC's reputation as an informed referral center grew,[13] collaboration with the coroner’s office, mental health professionals, police, probation, schools, and other organizations created the awareness needed to demystify suicide’s taboo and give hope to those who were suffering.
Through writing, teaching, training,[14] and publishing, LASPC directors disseminated their principles for the organization and functioning of a suicide prevention and crisis intervention community agency.
[22] With Farberow and his colleagues based in a city known for its Hollywood luminaries, the coroner often called on the men to use the psychological autopsy in determining whether suicide was the cause of death for such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe,[23] Robert Walker, and Marie McDonald.
[26] As part of his activity in the Central Research Unit for the Study of Unpredicted Death (CRU for SUD) in the Veterans Administration, Farberow identified and characterized his observations of indirect self-destructive behavior,[27][28] or ISDB, and described a broad range of behaviors ranging from “slight to extreme, from mild smoking to noncompliant medical neglect, from risk-taking, excitement-seeking, depression-averting, denial-mediated aspects of substance abuse addiction to dare-devil flaunting of fate in chasm jumping on a motorcycle.”[2] Farberow considered this body of work integral to understanding the continuum of self-destructive behavior, which he carefully researched and documented in a book entitled The Many Faces of Suicide.
[2] While on sabbatical in Europe and on other trips, Farberow frequently visited museums to see paintings, illustrations, and sculpture that depicted suicide; he became interested in studying the visual arts to chronicle history's shifting attitudes.
[35] This survivor population required a new approach to group therapy: these were not patients seeking to explore conflicts and problems with a therapist trained in traditional models.
In its infancy, the concept of a new global organization underwent “a classic clash of American vs. European ideas of how an Association was structured.” Farberow wrote, “My approach reflected my experience in U.S. psychology governance while his approach reflected his experience in an autocratic university and European associations.”[2] The commitment to argue through and resolve these issues resulted in a global organization that constitutes an important part of Farberow's professional legacy, the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP).
[41] Today, the IASP consists of a consortium of National Associations, mental health agencies, clinicians, researchers, and survivors of suicide from more than fifty countries.
Farberow rates as the most significant impacts work to be the lessening of the taboos related to suicide, so that the cry for help could be both more readily voiced and more easily heard.
[43] With the opening of the LASPC and the continual documentation of its progress, the long-neglected status of suicide as a significant public, physical, and mental health problem began to change.
Farberow examined the shifting nature of risk within a variety of subgroups, including police officers,[45] gay men,[46] the obese,[47] schizophrenics[48] and other psychiatric patients.
[49][50][51] youth,[52] adolescents,[53] the aged,[54][55] and the chronically[56][57] and terminally ill.[19] He evaluated and developed scales for assessing suicide risk in various levels of public schools and universities; offered recommendations to doctors,[58] nurses,[59] and hospitals;[60][61] assisted in addressing the problems of the coroner[62] and the bereaved; provided expert witness testimony for numerous trials; and consulted with both professional and Hollywood filmmakers.
[63] His work broadened to include crisis intervention with the publication of guidelines for human service[64] and child health care workers[65] in large-scale natural disasters.