September 23, 2024 • 20 mins
In this episode, Heena continues the discussion on Suicide Awareness Month, focusing on postvention and the troubling phenomenon of suicide contagion.
She delves into the concept of suicide contagion, explaining how exposure to suicidal behaviors can influence vulnerable individuals. She emphasizes the importance of responsible media reporting and offers guidelines for how news organizations can minimize the risk of suicide contagion.
The episode also explores postvention strategies, which are essential for providing support and healing to those affected by a suicide. Heena outlines the different levels of postvention—active, delayed, and passive—and discusses the importance of having a postvention plan in place for communities and organizations.
Finally, Heena addresses the unique and often complicated grief experienced by those who have lost someone to suicide, highlighting the mixed emotions and stigma that can accompany such a loss. Tune in to gain valuable insights into these critical aspects of trauma and grief therapy.
Links:
Adoption and Disenfranchised Grief Webinar (3 CEU): https://uplift-counseling-services.newzenler.com/live-class/adoption-disenfranchised-grief-3-ceu-live-virtual/register
Courses & professional development for Therapists: https://uplift-counseling-services.newzenler.com/therapiststreatingtrauma
References:
Treatment for SI, SH and Suicide attempts among youth. https://store.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/pep20-06-01-002.pdf
Emmresourcecenter.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:10):
You're listening to the Therapist Treating Trauma podcast, and I'm your host,
Hannah Kahn, licensed professional counselor supervisor and registered play
therapist supervisor based out of Allen, Texas.
I'm a specialty trauma and grief therapist for children and adults.
On this podcast, you will get a masterclass in trauma, grief,
and loss from a person-centered therapy framework, a neuroscience lens,
(00:33):
and culturally competent approach to support your work as therapists in this field.
Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in today to another episode.
I'm so glad you're here. Thanks so much.
I actually don't know how else to say this, but I don't get any...
It's interesting when you're doing a podcast, you're speaking into a mic and
(00:55):
you're putting this information out there in the world, and you're not sure
other than some numbers I'll get on my end, like how many people listened or
downloaded the episode,
I don't get kind of feedback around, how was it?
Like if I do like a webinar or training, I always have like surveys and that
tells me, gives me some feedback from my participants like, oh yeah,
this was helpful or I want more of this or I want less of this.
(01:16):
So I don't get a chance to get that with a podcast.
I realized I record them and I put them out in the world and then I don't really
know if it's being well received or not.
So anyways, I say this to say, if you like these episodes, if you like this episode.
Please do whatever you can to let me know in the sense, drop a comment under
(01:38):
the episode or hit the like button or hit the follow button or send me a message,
you know, and I'll leave out my email in the show notes.
But any kind of feedback is helpful for me to know that whatever I'm,
what I'm putting out there, it's helpful.
I believe it's helpful, but it would be nice to hear from therapists that,
you know, to whom this, these episodes or any of my episodes have been really
(02:00):
impactful and helpful in getting more insight.
So, this episode is actually kind of like part two of the one I did previously,
you know, related to Suicide Awareness Month, which is the month of September.
And so I'm going to just continue on that. This particular episode's topic is
going to be postvention.
And I'm also going to talk about suicide contagion effect.
(02:23):
That's a very troubling but very common phenomenon that happens usually following
a death by suicide that we may hear of in the community.
So I want to talk about that.
And then I also want to talk about postvention and just kind of what are some
of the things to keep in mind when we think about a postvention plan and what
(02:46):
exactly is it and how it could actually be really helpful for the community.
So before that, just a quick reminder, if you're interested in cultural diversity
CEUs, I have a live virtual webinar coming up in November.
If you're interested in learning more about adoption and disenfranchised grief,
I have a webinar coming up this month, actually, in just, I think,
(03:10):
I'm trying to think of, I'm a little disoriented.
I can't remember what date it is today, but it's coming up very soon at the end of September.
So if you're interested in that, definitely check out the show notes.
I'll be closing enrollment here pretty soon because we're getting close to the date.
All right, so on to our episode. So I talked about suicide contagion in the
previous episode, so I'm going to just kind of start with that.
(03:31):
So suicide contagion is this process where the exposure to the suicide or the
suicidal behaviors of others influences people who are already vulnerable and considering suicide.
So it becomes a significant risk factor because these are people who are already
(03:54):
vulnerable, who had already been thinking, like they already had ideation.
Remember, ideation is on a continuum, right?
So there's one end of that, and there's the other end of that.
You could be anywhere on that continuum of, and it's important to know where
someone is on that continuum.
So regardless of that, that exposure to this news or other, not just news,
(04:23):
maybe you were there, maybe you
witnessed something, maybe this person was connected with you in some way.
Any kind of exposure like that by a close friend, family member,
another person within your social network poses a significant risk.
So it elevates and it becomes one of those risk factors that we talked about
in the previous episode.
So it's really important to understand kind of what's going on with this with
(04:47):
the social suicidal contagion piece,
because every every over the years where I have supported communities who've
experienced a death by suicide,
there has always been a day or two after we hear the news of one,
we will hear the news of another one in some other part of the country or the
state or the city, you know, somewhere.
(05:08):
And it's really concerning because it can be very triggering for,
again, those who are vulnerable and who had considered suicide to now almost,
I don't know if this is the right word, but maybe not empowered,
but just it kind of draws them to that even more.
(05:30):
And one of the things that I think really impacts that is the way the media
talks about the incident.
These news reporters, newspapers, media platforms, they need to be educated
on how to responsibly write these pieces and how to do that.
(05:52):
You know, of mass communication, you know, in newspapers and in articles and
in on magazines on social media?
How can we write those responsibly?
It's, it's just really important. And so a couple things that you know,
I always think about when it comes to how they can write these responsibly,
some some thoughts I have is number one, and this is important.
(06:14):
I would say you could apply all of these even in community postvention services
or protocols that you're doing?
Because a lot of times the community, the biggest question or the most common
thing I get or I hear is, what happened?
Why did he do it? How did he do it? Where did he do it? What did he use?
Right? Like these questions are just not helpful. And so a lot of times in the
(06:37):
media, though, they'll describe all of these things, right?
That's the news to them. That's data for them.
So we want to encourage these news organizations, right, reporters to avoid
Avoid sharing unnecessary details about the means, the method, right?
Like that's just not helpful for, and it just really, I think it really does
(07:00):
amplify that risk, that suicidal contagion risk.
Just reporting on the death itself is enough.
We don't need to share. There was a death by suicide that was followed.
Actually, it was a couple of homicides followed by a suicide.
Side in our community a couple years ago, and there was a suicide note that was left.
(07:23):
And this suicide note was being circulated everywhere, like on social media.
Somebody found it, somebody posted it, and it's just been circulating.
Extremely triggering and significant risk factor.
We don't want that. We don't want the media sharing that. When we see that,
we want to go to the person who shared it and request them to immediately remove.
(07:47):
Delete, do what they need to do so that it doesn't go viral.
We also want to make sure language that is used in the media is very carefully
chosen, avoiding language that criminalizes, stigmatizes, or inflates, right, in any way.
Phrases like, I think we talked, I did talk about this in my previous episode,
like statements like committed suicide, you know, it's just very, or killed himself.
(08:12):
These are very sensationalized ways to create mass media articles.
We just don't need it to be like this.
These people who have died and their loved ones deserve the dignity.
And so it's really important that we are careful about the verbiage that we
(08:33):
use to not glamorize, to not inflate, to not stigmatize or criminalize any of these reports.
And so those are some of the ideas that I have about that.
If you know of news reporters, if you're connected to news media platforms,
these are great things to share with them and discuss with them.
(08:55):
So let's talk about postvention itself.
Postvention is essentially prevention. Intervention.
It's, you know, when people hear of these news, you know, in the news,
they hear of these incidents, it exposes people to this and a lot of possible,
you know, mental health consequences,
(09:17):
like there's stress, there's worry.
Worry every time there's been a death
by suicide in a youth i will have an
uproar sorry an uptick of parents calling
worried or you know friends and family members of parents calling worried my
kid is in college and i'm worried about him he's struggled in the past with
(09:38):
you know some maybe depression i'm just worried about him he's never mentioned
any ideation or anything like that that, but I'm worried about him.
So concerns like that have, you know, definitely, you know, take,
you know, rise in that time.
So, and then of course the suicidal contagion is a concern too.
So what postvention does is it offers support and healing to lost survivors to reduce that risk.
(10:03):
And not just the lost survivors, but even others who have been exposed to this kind of loss.
So there are different ways we can provide postvention, active postvention,
delayed delayed postvention, or what they call passive postvention,
which I don't even like that word, passive postvention.
But there's postvention happening, and I'll explain those in a minute.
But those are the different models or different ways we can provide postvention. But.
(10:26):
What's really critical is when you're, when, you know, in a community,
whatever organization you're a part of, whatever community you're a part of,
you want to have a postvention plan in place. It's kind of like insurance.
You have this backup, right? You have this protocol, you have this,
you know, this set protocol that if there was a crisis like this,
(10:47):
we know what we're going to deploy, what we're going to implement pretty quickly.
So you want to establish a post-advention team.
You want to establish partnerships or collaborations or community relationships
with your first responders, your school counselors, just other people in the
community that are heavily involved in this work, right?
Because the impact of a death by suicide impacts the entire community.
(11:11):
So having a plan before the crisis occurs is the best way to ensure effective
and coordinated post-advention response. response, okay?
Now, you can do this at different levels. You can do this at your practice level.
You could do this at your community level. You could do this at the city level.
If you're connected with the council, you could do this at that level.
You could do this if you're connected to a school. You can do it at your school level.
(11:31):
If you're, you know, a working professional or you know your partner is,
you know, at a, you know, a corporate office, you know, at that level,
there's various different levels we can have.
It's just, it's a plan that we, the organization, put together in
just to be prepared in in time of a crisis like
that and so the the way we want to understand you know or the way we want to
(11:52):
carry out this postvention plan when we think about active delayed or passive
usually when we think about exposure to the incident there's levels of exposure
right so there's the outermost layer is maybe like somebody who is living in another city
hears about this incident in another city and, you know, there's maybe some,
(12:12):
you know, contagion, there's maybe some, you know, sadness, there's some worry, right?
You're kind of far removed from the person who died by suicide,
but you hear about it and that's maybe upsetting and worrisome for you, right?
So that's like the farthest sphere of exposure. The next one would be.
(12:33):
People who are affected. So this might be people who, you know,
had some, you know, like, you know, had one were vulnerable,
right, to begin with, and they maybe have had suicidal ideation in the past.
Those people are your next group
of people that are actually affected by this at a deeper level, okay?
(12:54):
Then you might have people who had some connection with the person.
Maybe they were classmates, maybe you were an old classmate,
like high school, you used to go to high school together, but now you kind of,
you know, parted ways, or you know of them, or they were your old neighbor, right?
Like, so you had some connection with them, but you don't quite have that connection anymore.
And so, so there is, of course, sadness, you had some bonds,
(13:17):
some attachment with them, but you don't anymore.
But you, you know, it's, so there's still a little bit of separation.
Then there is the innermost circle, which is the immediate family and friends of the deceased, right?
These are your immediate loss survivors who have to, you know,
cope and heal and learn to live with this loss, right?
(13:37):
So those are your different kind of, you know, exposure levels, right?
With a situation like this, it's important to understand where you,
your client, your people, your community falls in that, you know,
continuum, kind of where, what is our exposure like?
(13:58):
Because So if this is happening in your community and you have access to the
immediate community that's experiencing this,
your active postvention plan is probably the one that you want to deploy immediately
because that's where law enforcement is notified and then law enforcement is
(14:21):
connected with you and they notify you and then you are on the scene supporting the
family of the deceased, you are supporting the law enforcement,
the paramedics, like you are on the scene.
So that's usually the most, that's an example of being in the active.
Or if this has occurred, and maybe you're not on the scene, but you're in the
family's home, you were there to visit them, you know, while,
(14:46):
you know, a little shortly after this unfolds, right?
So there's your active. And then there's the delayed. So this is where.
There is a little bit of a delay. It's not immediate. It's not maybe,
you know, actively on the scene, but it's a little bit delayed soon after the incident.
But now you have more coordinators, you have more people involved that are helping
(15:08):
the different moving parts of what needs to be done.
And again, partnership with your first responders, your community mental health
leaders and people like that would be is where this is really beneficial.
And then one thing to keep in mind, though, is that the active and the delayed,
even though, you know, delayed sounds like delayed, but it's like soon after,
(15:28):
both of these are not situations where we're waiting for the family or the loved
ones, the bereaved, to reach out for help. We're not waiting for them to do that.
This is more active. This is more we are kind of going there to offer this support.
This is not where we are here for you to, you know, we are here, please reach out to us.
(15:49):
That's not what this is. This is more like, because there's a lot of moving
parts, there's a lot happening there.
And so active and delayed, those first two models of postvention are very much,
you are here providing that support.
You're not requiring them to reach out for help.
Support is offered to them as soon as possible, in all the ways possible.
(16:10):
And then there's what they call the passive postvention, which is support that's
available to the lost survivors when they reach out.
So this is more of like that, we are here for you, please let us know how we can help.
Just reach out, this is our contact number.
And that there's a time and place for that. But at the very beginning,
initial stages, you want it to be very active, you know, whether it's immediately
(16:32):
or soon after, but then eventually you get to a point where you're like,
we are here to to help you, please reach out.
But the first two stages are really important and very, very critical.
One last thing I want to mention before we wrap up this episode is that the
grief that people experience,
(16:53):
the loss, the grief that comes from the loss that the bereaved are coping with,
is a very different kind of grief than losing someone in a different way.
And the reason for that is because there can be a lot of complicated feelings with this, right?
(17:17):
For someone, for a loved one, there may be feelings of anger.
There may be feelings of sadness.
There may be feelings of confusion, shock, or...
And, or there may be feelings of resentment, right? So there's so many,
and they all can coexist, right?
(17:38):
They can all happen. They can all coexist. They're all acceptable.
But a lot of times these mixed feelings make this grief very complicated, right?
And then on top of that, there's stigma and the stigma is elevated depending
on which community or faith or, you know, or which communities have more stigma,
(17:59):
right? then it's elevated even more.
So these deaths are traumatic. This is traumatic for the loved ones.
And it's often very sudden. It's very unexpected. It comes as a shock or it
comes as almost this feeling of I've been defeated, especially for those who
(18:19):
really have been trying to help this person.
Some people don't have a chance to resolve issues. Some people have a lot of
unsaid things that they're holding on to, right?
Like there's just so many things that can make this super, super complicated.
So this grief, so when you think about grief, grief for, you know,
people who are grieving the loss of someone that has to do with,
(18:43):
or that was due to related to suicide is a very different kind of grief.
And there's a lot of mixed feelings And so I just, I want us to be aware of that.
Again, you know, as a grief and trauma therapist,
I have to be very privy to the different kinds of grief, you know,
(19:04):
people show, you know, experience based on the grief, you know,
the loss itself and the circumstances of the loss.
So I hope this was helpful. I'm going to go ahead and wrap up my episode at this time.
Again, if you really enjoyed this episode, if this was really helpful in gaining insights into this,
these concepts, then definitely let me know, you know, maybe like our episode
(19:27):
or follow us or leave a comment or share this with another colleague or therapist.
So thanks again for being here. I will see you next time.
Music.
(00:10):
You're listening to the Therapist Treating Trauma podcast, and I'm your host,
Hannah Kahn, licensed professional counselor supervisor and registered play
therapist supervisor based out of Allen, Texas.
I'm a specialty trauma and grief therapist for children and adults.
On this podcast, you will get a masterclass in trauma, grief,
and loss from a person-centered therapy framework, a neuroscience lens,
(00:33):
and culturally competent approach to support your work as therapists in this field.
Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in today to another episode.
I'm so glad you're here. Thanks so much.
I actually don't know how else to say this, but I don't get any...
It's interesting when you're doing a podcast, you're speaking into a mic and
(00:55):
you're putting this information out there in the world, and you're not sure
other than some numbers I'll get on my end, like how many people listened or
downloaded the episode,
I don't get kind of feedback around, how was it?
Like if I do like a webinar or training, I always have like surveys and that
tells me, gives me some feedback from my participants like, oh yeah,
this was helpful or I want more of this or I want less of this.
(01:16):
So I don't get a chance to get that with a podcast.
I realized I record them and I put them out in the world and then I don't really
know if it's being well received or not.
So anyways, I say this to say, if you like these episodes, if you like this episode.
Please do whatever you can to let me know in the sense, drop a comment under
(01:38):
the episode or hit the like button or hit the follow button or send me a message,
you know, and I'll leave out my email in the show notes.
But any kind of feedback is helpful for me to know that whatever I'm,
what I'm putting out there, it's helpful.
I believe it's helpful, but it would be nice to hear from therapists that,
you know, to whom this, these episodes or any of my episodes have been really
(02:00):
impactful and helpful in getting more insight.
So, this episode is actually kind of like part two of the one I did previously,
you know, related to Suicide Awareness Month, which is the month of September.
And so I'm going to just continue on that. This particular episode's topic is
going to be postvention.
And I'm also going to talk about suicide contagion effect.
(02:23):
That's a very troubling but very common phenomenon that happens usually following
a death by suicide that we may hear of in the community.
So I want to talk about that.
And then I also want to talk about postvention and just kind of what are some
of the things to keep in mind when we think about a postvention plan and what
(02:46):
exactly is it and how it could actually be really helpful for the community.
So before that, just a quick reminder, if you're interested in cultural diversity
CEUs, I have a live virtual webinar coming up in November.
If you're interested in learning more about adoption and disenfranchised grief,
I have a webinar coming up this month, actually, in just, I think,
(03:10):
I'm trying to think of, I'm a little disoriented.
I can't remember what date it is today, but it's coming up very soon at the end of September.
So if you're interested in that, definitely check out the show notes.
I'll be closing enrollment here pretty soon because we're getting close to the date.
All right, so on to our episode. So I talked about suicide contagion in the
previous episode, so I'm going to just kind of start with that.
(03:31):
So suicide contagion is this process where the exposure to the suicide or the
suicidal behaviors of others influences people who are already vulnerable and considering suicide.
So it becomes a significant risk factor because these are people who are already
(03:54):
vulnerable, who had already been thinking, like they already had ideation.
Remember, ideation is on a continuum, right?
So there's one end of that, and there's the other end of that.
You could be anywhere on that continuum of, and it's important to know where
someone is on that continuum.
So regardless of that, that exposure to this news or other, not just news,
(04:23):
maybe you were there, maybe you
witnessed something, maybe this person was connected with you in some way.
Any kind of exposure like that by a close friend, family member,
another person within your social network poses a significant risk.
So it elevates and it becomes one of those risk factors that we talked about
in the previous episode.
So it's really important to understand kind of what's going on with this with
(04:47):
the social suicidal contagion piece,
because every every over the years where I have supported communities who've
experienced a death by suicide,
there has always been a day or two after we hear the news of one,
we will hear the news of another one in some other part of the country or the
state or the city, you know, somewhere.
(05:08):
And it's really concerning because it can be very triggering for,
again, those who are vulnerable and who had considered suicide to now almost,
I don't know if this is the right word, but maybe not empowered,
but just it kind of draws them to that even more.
(05:30):
And one of the things that I think really impacts that is the way the media
talks about the incident.
These news reporters, newspapers, media platforms, they need to be educated
on how to responsibly write these pieces and how to do that.
(05:52):
You know, of mass communication, you know, in newspapers and in articles and
in on magazines on social media?
How can we write those responsibly?
It's, it's just really important. And so a couple things that you know,
I always think about when it comes to how they can write these responsibly,
some some thoughts I have is number one, and this is important.
(06:14):
I would say you could apply all of these even in community postvention services
or protocols that you're doing?
Because a lot of times the community, the biggest question or the most common
thing I get or I hear is, what happened?
Why did he do it? How did he do it? Where did he do it? What did he use?
Right? Like these questions are just not helpful. And so a lot of times in the
(06:37):
media, though, they'll describe all of these things, right?
That's the news to them. That's data for them.
So we want to encourage these news organizations, right, reporters to avoid
Avoid sharing unnecessary details about the means, the method, right?
Like that's just not helpful for, and it just really, I think it really does
(07:00):
amplify that risk, that suicidal contagion risk.
Just reporting on the death itself is enough.
We don't need to share. There was a death by suicide that was followed.
Actually, it was a couple of homicides followed by a suicide.
Side in our community a couple years ago, and there was a suicide note that was left.
(07:23):
And this suicide note was being circulated everywhere, like on social media.
Somebody found it, somebody posted it, and it's just been circulating.
Extremely triggering and significant risk factor.
We don't want that. We don't want the media sharing that. When we see that,
we want to go to the person who shared it and request them to immediately remove.
(07:47):
Delete, do what they need to do so that it doesn't go viral.
We also want to make sure language that is used in the media is very carefully
chosen, avoiding language that criminalizes, stigmatizes, or inflates, right, in any way.
Phrases like, I think we talked, I did talk about this in my previous episode,
like statements like committed suicide, you know, it's just very, or killed himself.
(08:12):
These are very sensationalized ways to create mass media articles.
We just don't need it to be like this.
These people who have died and their loved ones deserve the dignity.
And so it's really important that we are careful about the verbiage that we
(08:33):
use to not glamorize, to not inflate, to not stigmatize or criminalize any of these reports.
And so those are some of the ideas that I have about that.
If you know of news reporters, if you're connected to news media platforms,
these are great things to share with them and discuss with them.
(08:55):
So let's talk about postvention itself.
Postvention is essentially prevention. Intervention.
It's, you know, when people hear of these news, you know, in the news,
they hear of these incidents, it exposes people to this and a lot of possible,
you know, mental health consequences,
(09:17):
like there's stress, there's worry.
Worry every time there's been a death
by suicide in a youth i will have an
uproar sorry an uptick of parents calling
worried or you know friends and family members of parents calling worried my
kid is in college and i'm worried about him he's struggled in the past with
(09:38):
you know some maybe depression i'm just worried about him he's never mentioned
any ideation or anything like that that, but I'm worried about him.
So concerns like that have, you know, definitely, you know, take,
you know, rise in that time.
So, and then of course the suicidal contagion is a concern too.
So what postvention does is it offers support and healing to lost survivors to reduce that risk.
(10:03):
And not just the lost survivors, but even others who have been exposed to this kind of loss.
So there are different ways we can provide postvention, active postvention,
delayed delayed postvention, or what they call passive postvention,
which I don't even like that word, passive postvention.
But there's postvention happening, and I'll explain those in a minute.
But those are the different models or different ways we can provide postvention. But.
(10:26):
What's really critical is when you're, when, you know, in a community,
whatever organization you're a part of, whatever community you're a part of,
you want to have a postvention plan in place. It's kind of like insurance.
You have this backup, right? You have this protocol, you have this,
you know, this set protocol that if there was a crisis like this,
(10:47):
we know what we're going to deploy, what we're going to implement pretty quickly.
So you want to establish a post-advention team.
You want to establish partnerships or collaborations or community relationships
with your first responders, your school counselors, just other people in the
community that are heavily involved in this work, right?
Because the impact of a death by suicide impacts the entire community.
(11:11):
So having a plan before the crisis occurs is the best way to ensure effective
and coordinated post-advention response. response, okay?
Now, you can do this at different levels. You can do this at your practice level.
You could do this at your community level. You could do this at the city level.
If you're connected with the council, you could do this at that level.
You could do this if you're connected to a school. You can do it at your school level.
(11:31):
If you're, you know, a working professional or you know your partner is,
you know, at a, you know, a corporate office, you know, at that level,
there's various different levels we can have.
It's just, it's a plan that we, the organization, put together in
just to be prepared in in time of a crisis like
that and so the the way we want to understand you know or the way we want to
(11:52):
carry out this postvention plan when we think about active delayed or passive
usually when we think about exposure to the incident there's levels of exposure
right so there's the outermost layer is maybe like somebody who is living in another city
hears about this incident in another city and, you know, there's maybe some,
(12:12):
you know, contagion, there's maybe some, you know, sadness, there's some worry, right?
You're kind of far removed from the person who died by suicide,
but you hear about it and that's maybe upsetting and worrisome for you, right?
So that's like the farthest sphere of exposure. The next one would be.
(12:33):
People who are affected. So this might be people who, you know,
had some, you know, like, you know, had one were vulnerable,
right, to begin with, and they maybe have had suicidal ideation in the past.
Those people are your next group
of people that are actually affected by this at a deeper level, okay?
(12:54):
Then you might have people who had some connection with the person.
Maybe they were classmates, maybe you were an old classmate,
like high school, you used to go to high school together, but now you kind of,
you know, parted ways, or you know of them, or they were your old neighbor, right?
Like, so you had some connection with them, but you don't quite have that connection anymore.
And so, so there is, of course, sadness, you had some bonds,
(13:17):
some attachment with them, but you don't anymore.
But you, you know, it's, so there's still a little bit of separation.
Then there is the innermost circle, which is the immediate family and friends of the deceased, right?
These are your immediate loss survivors who have to, you know,
cope and heal and learn to live with this loss, right?
(13:37):
So those are your different kind of, you know, exposure levels, right?
With a situation like this, it's important to understand where you,
your client, your people, your community falls in that, you know,
continuum, kind of where, what is our exposure like?
(13:58):
Because So if this is happening in your community and you have access to the
immediate community that's experiencing this,
your active postvention plan is probably the one that you want to deploy immediately
because that's where law enforcement is notified and then law enforcement is
(14:21):
connected with you and they notify you and then you are on the scene supporting the
family of the deceased, you are supporting the law enforcement,
the paramedics, like you are on the scene.
So that's usually the most, that's an example of being in the active.
Or if this has occurred, and maybe you're not on the scene, but you're in the
family's home, you were there to visit them, you know, while,
(14:46):
you know, a little shortly after this unfolds, right?
So there's your active. And then there's the delayed. So this is where.
There is a little bit of a delay. It's not immediate. It's not maybe,
you know, actively on the scene, but it's a little bit delayed soon after the incident.
But now you have more coordinators, you have more people involved that are helping
(15:08):
the different moving parts of what needs to be done.
And again, partnership with your first responders, your community mental health
leaders and people like that would be is where this is really beneficial.
And then one thing to keep in mind, though, is that the active and the delayed,
even though, you know, delayed sounds like delayed, but it's like soon after,
(15:28):
both of these are not situations where we're waiting for the family or the loved
ones, the bereaved, to reach out for help. We're not waiting for them to do that.
This is more active. This is more we are kind of going there to offer this support.
This is not where we are here for you to, you know, we are here, please reach out to us.
(15:49):
That's not what this is. This is more like, because there's a lot of moving
parts, there's a lot happening there.
And so active and delayed, those first two models of postvention are very much,
you are here providing that support.
You're not requiring them to reach out for help.
Support is offered to them as soon as possible, in all the ways possible.
(16:10):
And then there's what they call the passive postvention, which is support that's
available to the lost survivors when they reach out.
So this is more of like that, we are here for you, please let us know how we can help.
Just reach out, this is our contact number.
And that there's a time and place for that. But at the very beginning,
initial stages, you want it to be very active, you know, whether it's immediately
(16:32):
or soon after, but then eventually you get to a point where you're like,
we are here to to help you, please reach out.
But the first two stages are really important and very, very critical.
One last thing I want to mention before we wrap up this episode is that the
grief that people experience,
(16:53):
the loss, the grief that comes from the loss that the bereaved are coping with,
is a very different kind of grief than losing someone in a different way.
And the reason for that is because there can be a lot of complicated feelings with this, right?
(17:17):
For someone, for a loved one, there may be feelings of anger.
There may be feelings of sadness.
There may be feelings of confusion, shock, or...
And, or there may be feelings of resentment, right? So there's so many,
and they all can coexist, right?
(17:38):
They can all happen. They can all coexist. They're all acceptable.
But a lot of times these mixed feelings make this grief very complicated, right?
And then on top of that, there's stigma and the stigma is elevated depending
on which community or faith or, you know, or which communities have more stigma,
(17:59):
right? then it's elevated even more.
So these deaths are traumatic. This is traumatic for the loved ones.
And it's often very sudden. It's very unexpected. It comes as a shock or it
comes as almost this feeling of I've been defeated, especially for those who
(18:19):
really have been trying to help this person.
Some people don't have a chance to resolve issues. Some people have a lot of
unsaid things that they're holding on to, right?
Like there's just so many things that can make this super, super complicated.
So this grief, so when you think about grief, grief for, you know,
people who are grieving the loss of someone that has to do with,
(18:43):
or that was due to related to suicide is a very different kind of grief.
And there's a lot of mixed feelings And so I just, I want us to be aware of that.
Again, you know, as a grief and trauma therapist,
I have to be very privy to the different kinds of grief, you know,
(19:04):
people show, you know, experience based on the grief, you know,
the loss itself and the circumstances of the loss.
So I hope this was helpful. I'm going to go ahead and wrap up my episode at this time.
Again, if you really enjoyed this episode, if this was really helpful in gaining insights into this,
these concepts, then definitely let me know, you know, maybe like our episode
(19:27):
or follow us or leave a comment or share this with another colleague or therapist.
So thanks again for being here. I will see you next time.
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