Fallout From a Suicide Can Touch Everyone Who Is Exposed

The report "Helping All Who Are Exposed: A New View of Suicide Loss"*(free to read or download) describes a framework that considers the needs of everyone who might experience negative effects after someone dies by suicide. The framework organizes people that a suicide could have an impact on into four categories (see the illustration):

• Suicide Exposed: Everyone who has any connection to the deceased or to the death itself, including witnesses
• Suicide Affected: Those for whom the exposure causes a reaction, which may be mild, moderate or severe, self-limiting or ongoing
• Suicide Bereaved Short-Term: People who have an attachment bond with the deceased and gradually adapt to the loss over time
• Suicide Bereaved Long-Term: Those for whom grieving becomes a protracted struggle that includes diminished functioning in important aspects of their life
  
  

The graphic above gives a multitude of examples of people who might experience fallout from a suicide, including many whose needs are not accounted for in current outreach efforts. As the report states,

"Determining how a particular individual might be categorized would not be linked to the person's designation, role, or relationship in reference to the deceased. Rather, each person's reaction to the death would determine the category into which he or she would be classified."

*The report covers one of several fresh perspectives in the field of suicide postvention offered in Responding to Grief, Trauma, and Distress After a Suicide: U.S. National Guidelines, by the Survivors of Suicide Loss Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. Introductory material from the guidelines (Table of Contents, Executive Summary, Acknowledgements, Preface) is available at bit.ly/excerptsosl, and the complete document is available at bit.ly/respondingsuicide.