When a Patient Commits Suicide

Suicide is a tragic and upsetting event which sometimes occurs when a person is in some form of therapy. This paper advocates a process after a patient commits suicide which allows for a thorough and orderly working through of the event by involved treatment personnel. The primary focus of this process is neither identification of responsibility nor of cause. The primary goals are to air issues and attitudes, identify factors contributing to the suicide, and most particularly to allow for the thorough expression of residual feelings and issues by the treatment personnel affected. Therapists who utilized this process were able to deal satisfactorily with grief and guilt issues after experiencing patient suicides. A case example illustrates the use of this process.