Karen Mason - Preventing Suicide: A Handbook for Pastors, Chaplains and Pastoral Counselors

Most suicides, although by no means all, can be prevented.

Kay Redfield Jamison

I am not sure when it finally hit me that suicide can be prevented. I think it was somewhere in a therapy session several years ago with Jane, Typically suicide prevention involves hospitalizing suicidal clients and Jane wanted to stay out of the hospital. I wasnt sure this was doable or how to do it.

All this occurred for me within a complicated set of attitudes toward suicide picked up throughout my life. As I had read Sophocles and Shakespeare, as I had watched films and news reports on suicide, I had begun to develop the expectation that certain clients in certain situations might claim a right to suicide. Some depictions of suicide were affecting my attitudes and muddling my thinking about how to help Jane.

Here are some typical depictions of suicide that may affect attitudes about suicide and suicide prevention:

Suicide as duty. An example of a duty suicide is a Hindu widow who immolates herself on her deceased husbands funeral pyre. This type of suicide, though considered a duty, also had a voluntary aspect, as is evidenced by the fact that although the British declared this type of suicide illegal in 1829, they found it difficult to stop the practice.

Suicide when honor is at stake. A second depiction is that suicide is honorable in certain situations. The Japanese custom of hara-kiri, a type of honor suicide reserved for nobility and members of the military caste, is described by Fedden as follows:

In 1868 twenty Japanese knights involved in the murder of a French officer were condemned to execute hari-kari before the French ambassador.