An ongoing Irish study aims to combine art with science to bring suicide out into the open and up the political agenda
A WOMAN stands in a round, white room in front of an image of a young female, her body shaking with emotion as she examines the life-size face. The image is that of her 20-year-old daughter, who she lost to suicide.
“I stood in front of her and I put my hands either side of her face. There was nobody in the world but us,” she wrote afterwards. “Three days later I still feel healing and warmth. I felt the best I have felt in five years since my beloved first-born child . . . handed her life back to God. My block of ice in my chest is thawing.”
This was the reaction of one volunteer who took part in an Irish study that aims to combine art with science to bring suicide out of the realm of stigma and bare statistics and up the political agenda.
A presentation on the study, entitled Suicide in Ireland: A Conversation and Journey through Loss with Science and Arts, was brought before the Joint Committee on Health and Children last week.
“This is a project about bringing the private, traumatic loss of suicide from the kitchen tables around Ireland to create a meaningful platform to discuss and articulate this loss in a place beyond stigma,” Prof Kevin Malone of St Vincent’s University Hospital and the UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science told the committee.
Prof Malone and co-researcher and artist Seamus McGuinness described the study as a combination of a “psychological autopsy” of those who had died through suicide by speaking to their next-of-kin, and a “visual-arts autopsy” in which images and items associated with some of those who had lost their lives were collected and used as part of an exhibition.
In total, 220 relatives of 104 suicide victims from 23 counties were interviewed. The study, which is ongoing, will compare these cases to interviews with 104 age-matched people who have attempted to take their own lives.
The study’s preliminary results, based on analysis of 98 people of age 30 or under who took their own lives, showed that the majority were males, most were single and 45 per cent had no Leaving Cert.
The study found that 60 per cent had some exposure to suicide in a three-month period prior to their deaths, while one in eight were part of suicide “clusters”, defined as more than three deaths in a specified geographical area where there was an intimate interpersonal connectivity beforehand.
Almost 41 per cent had not previously tried to take their own lives, while more than two-thirds had communicated suicidal ideas before their death.
Among a smaller sample of 36 suicide victims under the age of 21, two-thirds had been exposed to peer suicide; 39 per cent had a relationship break-up within a month prior to their death; 44 per cent had substantial alcohol use, and 14 per cent had severe mental-health issues.
Prof Malone said “nothing remotely” like the project had been undertaken in Ireland before, adding that we are in a “complete knowledge vacuum”.
The presentation was held ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day, which took place on Friday – a day before Samaritans Ireland called on the Government to invest in front-line services to help people suffering with depression, given that suicide in Ireland increased by 24 per cent between 2008 and 2009. The organisation also warned that the recession is exacerbating the problem for men in their 30s, 40s and 50s, the age group in which suicide is increasing at the fastest rate.
Prof Malone called on the Government to carry out an audit of existing suicide services, and also called for a dedicated research programme to be set up similar to one in Finland, part of which involved a systematic survey of every family in the country bereaved by suicide in 1988 (some 1,798 cases).
He said a similar approach here could help identify different causation factors for different groups, which need different interventions across the life cycle.
“I don’t see a lot of signposts to care or even signposts that society cares about young people’s lives. In fact, when we talk to families we much more often hear about obstacles to care.
A “visual-arts autopsy” was also integrated into the study, collecting items from 62 families who had lost loved ones to suicide.
As part of one installation, 42 families donated images of their loved ones. Mr McGuinness used these to create images from cloth, which were then exhibited to the families, something many found therapeutic.
The exhibition was later opened to the public, with the families’ consent, in the Royal College of Physicians in May. Those who took part were hopeful that bringing the exhibition into the public domain might stop others from taking their own lives by showing the devastation visited on those left behind.
“It’s too late for everybody here, but it’s not too late to alert people who feel that they want to take their own lives – please don’t do it. It’s not too late to alert families to the signs,” said one woman who participated in the study.
Call the Samaritans on 1850-609090, or text 087-2609090