|TOP|A Christian-run group in Japan has reported that the demand for its suicide counselling service has soared in recent years.

Telephone crisis counselling service FIND (Federation of Inochi No Denwa) reports that counselling cases in Japan, once sought mainly by young people, reached an all-time high in 2005 at 45,600, reports Ecumenical News International.

“In our early years, counselling to prevent youth suicides took up most of our work, but recently, we're seeing a growing number of suicide crises from middle-aged and elderly people," the Rev. Yukio Saito, FIND executive director told ENI.

FIND was set up in 1971 by Christian volunteers in Tokyo training voluntary counsellors to provide secular telephone counselling for people struggling with mental crises. It has since expanded to 50 centres across Japan run by thousands of volunteers.

|AD|While the service previously offered guidance predominantly for the young, Rev Saito, a minister in the United Church of Christ in Japan, said that many of the people facing mental breakdowns today are in their thirties.

Among the attributed causes are concerns about employment and declining job security.

"Mental diseases such as depression seem to be behind the numbers," he added.

Rev Saito was among a group of specialists called on by Japan’s health ministry in 2002 to research into suicide prevention with the purpose of developing a counter to the sharp increase in cases of depression in Japan.

“There is no clinching move to suicide prevention," he said during a lecture in Tokyo in April.

He said Counselling people facing deaths of their loved ones is always difficult but added that, “we can firmly lend our ears to the appeals [by those attempting suicides], be sympathetic with them if possible, and be close to them, if not bear their burdens together."