Chapter 8: A Brief Note On Suicide And Women

In chapter eight, the opening paragraph began by speaking on the possibility of dealing with suicidal and/or homicidal clients. The chapter emphasized the importance of the crisis worker’s continuous awareness and assessment of risk level for all clients in crisis. It was interesting to learn that young people between the ages of 15 and 24 accounts for the largest increase in suicides during the past 30 years. I can believe that men kill themselves four times the rate for women. From my understanding in past classes, women make the most attempts of suicide but men go through it the most, especially with firearms. The chapter stated that a person in the United States is less likely to be murdered than to commit suicide. In Eastern culture suicide

In the Freudian inward aggression theory, suicide is triggered by an intrapsychic conflict that emerges when a person experiences great psychological stress. Sometimes such stress emerges either as regression or as inhibition of one’s hostility toward other people or toward society so that one’s aggressive feelings are turned inward toward the self. Freud called this a melancholic state, and it is now considered depression. In this section I learned the term psychache. It refers to the hurt, anguish, soreness, and aching pain of the mind. Intolerable psychological pain is the one variable that relates to all suicides. The psychache is tied to frustrated, blocked, and preventing psychological needs. Suicide serves to eliminate the tension related to those blocked

Often the person who is suicidal is also homicidal. Suicide is often intended to take the place of homicide and brand the intended victim as the person who is really responsible for the suicide. The highest risks are the presence of serious intent, a history of prior attempts, and evidence of a specific and lethal plan. Suicide/homicide notes may generally be characterized by their dichotomous logic, hostility, and self-blame. Hate, disgust, fear, loathing, rejection, shame, disgrace, and failure are constant themes. Most suicidal clients leave some clues or hints about their trouble or call for help in some way. The clues may be verbal, behavioral, and situational. This goes back to the importance of the crisis worker’s continuous awareness and assessment of risk level. It is important to pay attention to your client, verbally and behaviorally. This chapter was important because as a potential crisis worker who may deal with suicidal clients’ needs to know that there are several different types and characteristics of suicide. This chapter explains that there are many reasons why individuals attempt to kill themselves. Counselors should not be judgmental about their decision because there are different moral and cultural points of view about