Table of Contents
Foreword Dr. Sharon McDonnell 9
Preface 11
Introduction 15
Before we start 16
What is suicide? 17
What this book is not about 17
Suicide in numbers 18
How people die 19
Suicide myths 20
Risk factors 21
Is suicide contagious? 22
Your views 24
What is suicide postvention? 26
Suicide and mental illness 31
Acute stress and how it affects us 34
1 Responding to Suicide 39
Sudden death and suicide: Legal protocols 39
Why investigate? 45
Home invasion 46
Found by a stranger 52
Group dynamics 55
When there is no body 64
2 Breaking the Bad News 71
Who to inform? 73
How to inform next of kin after a sudden death 74
A two-phase procedure 75
Time versus verification: Information management 81
When next of kin arrive at the scene 85
Honesty 88
3 The Body After Death 93
To view or not to view? 93
Anatomy of death 94
The response after a sudden death 101
Autopsy 102
Identification 105
How will we know when a person died? 107
Impact on first responders 108
Funeral wishes and decisions 109
4 Communicating After Suicide 119
How to talk about suicide 119
Werther versus Papageno: How communication can influence suicide risk 120
International guidelines for reporting on suicide 123
Dos and don'ts when reporting after a suicide 134
A last written communication: Suicide notes 137
5 Breaking the Taboo: Religious and Cultural Perspectives, Guilt, and Shame after Suicide 143
Overview of suicide and the law 144
Religion and suicide 146
Abrahamic religions 147
Indian religions 156
Pagan religions 157
Philosophical views and other insights 157
Guilt and shame 160
6 Special Cases of Suicide 173
Children and suicide 173
Suicide clusters 178
Combined suicides, suicide pacts, and mass suicides 179
Murder-suicide 181
Suicide by cop 182
When famous people end their lives 184
Suicide and (cruise)ships 185
Taboo within a taboo: Autoerotic fatalities 186
The suicide at the International Court of Justice 193
7 Conclusions; Moving on After Suicide 199
Psycho-hygiene: What about us? 201
Resources 205
