The Caregiver&’s Reactions After Suicide of A Patient

Abstract

Suicide is a traumatic event, which has a long-lasting affect on many different people. Most affected people are the relatives, but as a lot of experiences and research have shown, the caregivers are touched by suicide of their patient as well. The professional role serves as ‘a defensive and reparative function to overcome the pain which they (caregivers) feel as human beings’ (Litman 1965). The reactions in professionals, most common after suicide of a patient were grief, guilt, depression, personal inadequacy and anger, most of which are very similar to those reported in studies of family survivors of suicide (Ness & Pfeffer, 1990; Farberow, 1992; Watson & Lee, 1993; Valente 1994). Working with people in crisis, we know, that it is unavoidable to experience patient’s suicide -as Brown has put it (1987) ‘there are only two types of therapists: the ones who have already experienced a patient’s suicide and those who will’. Should we try to understand why it is so difficult to overcome the patient’s suicide, it is necessary to remember that a therapist invests a lot of knowledge, experiences, personal engagement and time on a patient, but if suicide occurs, the caregiver gets back only feelings of failure and devaluation, a lot of doubts and frustration, pain and guilt. These feelings are not only in the domain of psychotherapists, but are experienced by family doctors as well. Until now, they have been more or less a forgotten group of suicide survivors. How do they get through the suicide of their patient-are they more or less affected by the event than psychotherapists? While working with the General Medical Practitioners (GPs), on suicide prevention workshops, we realised that death and suicide are their everyday companions. They have to make a home visit regularly when somebody dies or commits suicide. They are the first ones on the scene, serving as the first aid to the person and/or his family. Many timesespecially in the small communities, they know the whole family and their circumstances. They might have even seen the patient recently, bud did not ask about his suicidal thoughts.