Some Frequent Questions
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What happens when I contact Samaritans?
A trained Samaritans volunteer will answer and give you the chance to talk about what’s happening in your life and how that is affecting you. Samaritans volunteers are trained in many of the same techniques as professional counsellors, but they won’t judge you or tell you what to do.
By listening and asking questions, the volunteer will help you explore your feelings and work out the way forward. The volunteer will often ask if you are feeling suicidal. This doesn’t mean that you must be suicidal to contact us but we always ask because it can be a huge relief for someone to admit how bad they are really feeling.
You can talk to Samaritans for as long as you want and you needn’t tell us your name or any personal details at all if you don’t want to.
What kind of things can I contact Samaritans about?
Samaritans is available to anyone who is in any kind of distress. People of all backgrounds and ages contact us for emotional support.
Sometimes people call us because they are struggling to cope with a single problem that they have. More often, people contact us because a number of problems have mounted up and they’re finding it hard to cope.
People often feel that they cannot talk to anyone else. Maybe they feel that they’re a burden or that they don’t want to worry people around them. Sometimes people have found others are too quick to offer advice or tell them what to do and this has meant they don’t really feel listened to or understood.
All calls are confidential and we don’t keep detailed records about why people call Samaritans, but some common reasons people contact us are:
- relationship and family problems
- loss, including loss of a job, a friend or a family member through bereavement
- financial worries
- job related stress or overwork
- college or study related stress
- loneliness and isolation
Only 14% of people surveyed for us in 2007 gave one reason for contacting Samaritans. 56% listed up to 5 reasons, showing that the reasons for people’s distress are usually multi-faceted.