How to Help Suicide Survivors
Nancy Rappaport, M.D., is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who practices in the Boston area and works with children and teenagers in the Cambridge public schools. She lost her mother to suicide at age 4 and advises psychiatrists and mental health professionals working with patients who have had someone close to them commit suicide to consider the following:
| •. | Work to understand any beliefs, feelings, or biases concerning people who have died by suicide. Gaining such an awareness deepens one's capacity to empathize with patients who have experienced the suicide of someone close to them. | ||||
| •. | Provide factual information about the causes of suicide and provide context to the suicide. “Understanding the causes may help to mitigate some of the pervasive guilt and ‘what ifs’ that sometimes linger in survivors' minds,” Rappaport said. | ||||
| •. | Recommend support groups for patients who have lost a loved one to suicide and are feeling isolated, stigmatized, or ashamed by what happened. Patients may feel less alone and more hopeful by hearing from others who have learned how to come to terms with the suicide death of a loved one. | ||||
| •. | Some family members may find it difficult to support one another after losing a relative to suicide. Encourage family members to communicate constructively and help them find comforting rituals to share, such as participating in religious observances or creating a box of mementos and keepsakes to share with one another. | ||||
