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

Abstract

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.