Standing in the Breach: Discussion of Alexis Tomarken’s “The Shroud of Suicide”

ABSTRACT

Tomarken (this issue) illuminates the intergenerational reverberation of suicide loss in a moment of historical precarity. With a rise in adolescent suicide risk globally, Tomarken contextualizes the emotional toll on families and the specific misogynistic demands that interpellate women as failed caregivers. The author joins Tomarken’s brave interrogation through the lens of her story of family suicide loss. The author extends Tomarken’s view of the violation of the moral code in family suicide by evoking the notion of a breach, a rupture in safety, trust, and protection that echoes across generations. Analysts’ personal history of suicide loss intermingles in clinical work with patients similarly haunted by suicide bereavement, creating opportunities to live out under-mentalized emotional states, both consciously and unconsciously, as an alive witness. Attunement to the analysts’ vulnerability and grief may deepen emotional resonance and recognition that co-creates a mutually transformative space.

This article refers to:

The Shroud of Suicide: Misogyny, Abjection, and Transgenerational Trauma

View responses to this article:

Reply to Tillman and Ferguson: The Personal and the Generalizable

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Quinn Mierlak for allowing me to share our family story. Much gratitude to Vincent Mierlak, Adrienne Harris, Susan Klebanoff, Victoria Demos, Sarah Mendelsohn, and Laura MacDonald for their thoughtful editorial suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Poverty affects mental health status; among youth, suicidal thoughts and behaviors vary by race and ethnicity. Black or African Americans living below the poverty level are twice as likely to report severe psychological distress compared to those over twice the poverty level.

Black females, grades 9–12, were 60% more likely to attempt suicide in 2019 than non-Hispanic white females of the same age. (Source: CDC 2021. High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data. [Accessed 04/21/2021] https://nccd.cdc.gov/youthonline). American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), multiple races, and Asian high school youth have the highest percentages of seriously considering attempting suicide. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System. (2021). 1991–2019 High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data [Data file]. Retrieved from http://nccd.cdc.gov/youthonline/

² The original supervision group led by Adrienne Harris included Galit Atlas, Michael Feldman, Heather Ferguson, Arthur Fox, Margery Kalb, and Susan Klebanoff.

³ Quinn permitted me to tell his story.

⁴ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/arts/design/review-independent-art-fair-combines-less-is-more-and-growth.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather Ferguson

Heather Ferguson, LCSW, is faculty and supervisor at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, and faculty at the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis Certificate Program in Trauma Studies, all in NYC. She is Co-Book Review Editor for Psychoanalysis, Self, and Context and has a private practice in New York City.