Death by Suicide: Whose Fault Was It?
Date Posted: July 19, 2019
Posted In: Discussion, Workforce,
From Construction Executive: Success in the construction industry is largely earned by the application of verified facts gained through understanding truths from the sciences of physics, mathematics, business, finance and others. Most of the time things work best when scientific rules are applied and it makes sense. Construction leaders are well trained in these skills, but what about when something absolutely senseless happens?
Suicide breaks all the rules. It makes no sense.
When shaken by such an event, people rush to make sense of it. People impacted by trauma predictably tend to regress to more basic, primitive impulses and defenses; immediately attempt to make sense of the incident in effort to gain a feeling of control over it; and isolate from others.
This level of reasoning immediately searches for a “bad guy” who caused the tragedy and grasps at the one thing that could have caused such a shocking decision. Projection of blame an allegations need not be accurate to be powerfully destructive. Sometimes this blaming leads to conflict, shame, violence or even another death by suicide.
Also common is the dynamic in which those close to the deceased point the finger of blame squarely at themselves:
- What did I miss?
- I must be an awful friend or colleague for him to be able to do that.
- Did I put too much pressure on her?
Resist the rush to blame. Whereas there may have been a precipitating event, in reality death by suicide usually involves a multitude of factors. Rather than assign blame, a more productive life-giving approach is to provide prompt “postvention” support for those impacted by the death and to educate people regarding suicide prevention.
Postvention support may be available through the company’s Employee Assistance Program that can deploy specially trained behavioral health professionals to consult with leadership, help script messaging, lead group and individual discussions regarding the death, and assess/triage employees who may be at risk for suicide themselves and need additional support.
Effective postvention can serve as prevention.