Suicide Grief

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ANNOUNCEMENT: First National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention: A Call to Action for Workplaces to Make Suicide Prevention a Health Priority

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ANNOUNCEMENT: First National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention: A Call to Action for Workplaces to Make Suicide Prevention a Health Priority

Today on World Mental Health Day, the American Association of Suicidology (AAS), American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and United Suicide Survivors International (United Survivors), announce their collaboration and release of the first ‘National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention.’ These Guidelines — built by listening to the expertise of diverse groups like HR, employment law, employee assistance professionals, labor and safety leaders, and many people who had experienced a suicide crisis while they were employed — will help employers and workplaces become proactively involved in suicide prevention in the workplace. Employers ready to become vocal, visible and visionary and who are ready to take the pledge to make suicide prevention a health and safety priority visit WorkplaceSuicidePrevention.com.

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Men and Suicide Loss: An Often Invisible Grief

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Men and Suicide Loss: An Often Invisible Grief

…Most men in our survey attributed to any differences in suicide grief between men and women to male socialization to be strong and self-reliant and at the same time, many wished that they had access to more supportive men-friendly resources during their bereavement. We know that family members who have lost someone to suicide have an increased risk of suicide themselves — partly because of the exposure effect, partly because the suffering is so great, and partly because of the yearning to be with their loved one. Thus, we owe it to the men who want different options for suicide grief support — perhaps peer-to-peer, one-on-one, or side-by-side — to find innovative ways to help men honor their losses and find ways to integrate the tragedy into their life’s story.

The Paradox of Traumatic Grief

The Paradox of Traumatic Grief

…The course of a complicated bereavement, like the process that often follows suicide, usually does not follow the straightforward path outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross so many decades ago, but rather twists and turns and circles back on itself through mazes of denial, sadness, anger, shame, blame, and multiple physical reactions.  Several authors have described an “oscillating process” in complicated bereavement – a moving back and forth between loss-orientation and restoration orientation, between growth and depreciation…

Get Ready for National Suicide Prevention Week: How to Effectively Message about Suicide

Get Ready for National Suicide Prevention Week: How to Effectively Message about Suicide

Question: Is our hyper-focus on “safe messaging” getting in the way of “effective messaging”?...

For years, suicide prevention advocates have focused on “safe messaging,” a series of do’s and don’ts that emphasize help-seeking and discourage mentioning suicide details. The goal of these suggestions is to avoid triggering vulnerable people to over-identify with suicide as a way to escape their emotional pain. Many of these tips – like don’t glamorize or romanticize suicide --are beneficial, and we certainly don’t want our content to cause harm. But I and many others are starting to recognize that a single-minded focus on "safe messaging" may be getting in the way of us being effective in our communication....