Annotated Bibliography

Campos, Rui C., et al. “Exposure to Suicide in the Family: Suicide Risk and Psychache in

Individuals Who Have Lost a Family Member by Suicide.” Journal of Clinical

Psychology, vol. 74, no. 3, Mar. 2018, pp. 407–417. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/jclp.22518.

This article presents and explains research conducted by the authors and the

experimentation that they used. The purpose of the study was to compare a sample of people

exposed to suicide in their families with a control group, for “lifetime suicidality” (their risk of

committing suicide over their lifetime). This study also evaluated the level of “psychache” to see

how that factors plays a role as well. The study consisted of a control group of 172 individuals,

and an experimental group composed of 53 individuals exposed to suicides within their families.

The three self-tests that the study gave to its participants were the SBQ-R (Suicide behaviors

questionnaire – revised), BSI (The brief symptom inventory, which measures symptoms of

general distress), and the psychache scale (which measures the scale of psychological pain). As

for the results, The two groups’ results did differ significantly on the SBQ-R test and the

psychache scale, but without much differentiation on the BSI test. The exposed group had

significantly higher average values on the SBQ-R test and psychache test with a strong

correlation between the two tests. The study concluded that “suicide-exposed persons

manifesting high levels of psychache should be especially considered for therapeutic

intervention.”

I feel the credibility of this article is very high. With three credible scientists working on

this experiment, they found a lot of good data regarding the effects of psychache that will help

me back up my main thesis in my paper.

Serani, Deborah. “Understanding Survivors of Suicide Loss.” Psychology Today, Sussex

Publishers, 25 Nov. 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/two-takes-

depression/201311/understanding-survivors-suicide-loss.

This article summarizes what one goes through when someone they know dies by suicide.

The death of a loved one is never easy, however, when one dies by suicide it leaves feelings of

surprise, confusion, and awful feelings to deal with. Suicide is thought of as shameful and sinful.

It effects at least 6 people for every suicide according to research. One usually commits suicide

to end whatever pain they are experiencing and usually have significant depression that narrows

their problem-solving skills. There are many ways to help a someone grieving over a loss; talk

about the death, ask how you can help them, be accepting of their feelings, be patient with them,

and listen when they need to talk. If you are the one grieving; don’t blame yourself, don’t be

afraid to grieve for as long as you need, join a support group, allow yourself to cry or laugh, and

plan how to remember this loved one in the future.

I feel this article is credible as well. The author, Dr. Deborah Serani, is an adjunct

professor at Adelphi University, the award-winning author of "Living with Depression,"

"Depression and Your Child: A Guide for Parents and Caregivers" and "Depression in Later

Life", and a licensed psychologist in practice for over twenty-five years. She knows what she is

talking about when it comes to depression and suicidal tendencies. This article will improve my

paper by explaining what friends and family of suicide victims are feeling when going through

grief.

Freedenthal, Stacey. “‘If Only’: Self-Blame After a Loved One's Suicide.” Speaking of Suicide, 5

Oct. 2017, www.speakingofsuicide.com/2014/05/07/if-only/.

 This article is about self-blaming when a person loses someone to suicide. Many people

are affected by this. You blame yourself for things you think you should have said or done. One

doesn’t know what everyone is going through so there is no way of knowing until it is too late.

The article points out this very interesting thing called hindsight bias. Hindsight bias happens

when the individual's affected understand the outcome of their specific traumatic event and

wrongly think that they possess the power to predict or even change its outcome. They believe

deeply that their past actions lead to the loss of their loved one. We do not understand that we

cannot have control over someone else’s life. The fault lies with whatever circumstance they

were going through. Mostly the cause is mental illness. Self-blame keeps from grieving and from

healing. When focusing on self-blaming you think of nothing else and that keeps you from

healing.

This article is credible to me. Dr. Freedenthal writes many many articles about the topic

of suicide and is the author of the book Helping the Suicidal Person: Tips and Techniques for

Professionals. Dr. Freedenthal also is an associate professor at the University of Denver

Graduate School of Social Work, and a psychotherapist and consultant in private practice. This

article will fit in to my paper perfectly when writing about how self-blame in regards to suicide

can break a person to their lowest point.

"Grieving a Suicide Death." WhatsYourGrief, 17 May 2016, www.whatsyourgrief.com/grieving-

suicide-death/. 7 Nov. 2018.

This article explains why we feel the feelings of grief after the loss of a loved one by

suicide. The article starts off by disclaiming that grief is purely subjective to the griever; No

person is going to go through grief in the same exact way as another person. Health institutions

have been trying to change the way we talk about suicide and the terminology we use. We should
not say “she committed suicide” since that holds a sort of negative stigma towards the suicide

victim. The article then explains the trauma that affects friends and family of a suicide victim.

Many factors go into creating the trauma associated with suicide like how sudden it was, the

unpleasant scenes, and regarding the death as preventable. The author summarizes it beautifully

with this quote, “…it is not the nature of a death that makes it traumatic, rather how the event is

interpreted and processed by the individual”. The next section of the article sheds light on the

questions we ask ourselves when dealing with a traumatic suicide loss. Questions like “What if?”

and “How did I let this happen” are common questions we ask ourselves in this situation. Many

people will keep trying to answer the question of “Why?” and won’t stop until it is answered.

Family conflict could also come into play when dealing with suicide. Disagreements about the

suicide and how to deal with it can add additional stress on any griever. Grievers can also feel

like the victim abandoned them, even if it defies all logical reasoning. Fear of their own grieving

actions can lead a griever to add on to the flurry of emotions by causing additional anxiety,

depression, anger or shame. The last thing the article brings up is the stigma that goes along with

suicide. It is hard for outsiders to imagine the emotional and mental pain that a suicide loss

survivor is going through since they have not gone through it themselves. This leads to

assumptions and judgements about the suicide victims actions that are not at all true, calling

them weak and cowardly for “taking the easy way out”. This is awful for the grievers to hear. If

no one is willing to listen to a suicide loss survivor due to their own uneducated beliefs, why

would the survivor trust them to help in the vulnerable state that they are in? This leads to

isolation and shame.

 I think this source is credible. There are links to the sources they used and they cite them

throughout the article. This article will improve my paper by helping further explain what goes

through a person’s head when dealing with a suicide loss.

“Suicide Data.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 5 Nov. 2018,

www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/.

This article presents a flurry of suicide statistics and data. It presents the data in

categories such as general suicide data, suicide estimates, suicide data reported by countries,

suicide attempt surveillance, and global suicide data. It explains that 800,000 people die by

suicide each year, making it one suicide every 40 seconds. It also explains that for every one

successful suicide, there are 20 unsuccessful suicide attempts made. There are a lot of graphs

showcasing various suicide data. For example, there is a graph that showcases suicides by age

and income level. Using this, they concluded that 79% of suicides occurred in low- and middle-

income countries in 2016. This article doesn’t have a lot of “meat” to it, but the various graphs

and statistics make it a worthy candidate for my paper.

This article is very credible. It is by the World Health Organizations with very many

statistics and graphs to present their data. This article will fit into my paper by using the graphs

to exhibit the relevance and severity that is the act of suicide.