Postvention is prevention—The case for suicide postvention

ABSTRACT

There is now convincing empirical evidence that exposure to suicide increases the risk of subsequent suicide, as well as other negative mental health sequelae, in those who have been exposed. This article provides a review of this empirical evidence. It also concludes that this substantial evidence base makes the compelling case that all suicide prevention programs need to include postvention services as a direct form of suicide prevention with a population of people known to be at heightened risk for suicide themselves: suicide loss survivors.

Notes

¹It is beyond the scope of this article to address the complex question of whether suicide is, in fact, a choice, except to say that in this author’s experience, each suicide is unique as to the degree of choice or “free-will” that appears to be involved. Suicide is an exceedingly complex phenomenon, in which multiple factors can play a role. One of those factors, but hardly the only one, can be understood as a degree of decision-making on the part of the individual in making a “choice” to die. Thus, for each suicide, there is likely a differing degree of choice involved in the behavior, as there is in most complex human behaviors. The important element here, however, is the degree to which the loss survivor perceives the suicide as having been chosen by the deceased.