Jay E. Valusek
I HELP PEOPLE MAKE SENSE OF SUICIDE. I lost my own daughter, Beth, to suicide in 2018. So I get it. Today, I work exclusively with other suicide loss survivors.
The construction of a coherent narrative that helps the mourner make at least partial sense of the suicide is a central healing task for most survivors. — John R. Jordan, PhD, Grief After Suicide
Hi, I’m a scientist, poet, award-winning writer, meditation teacher, health coach, chronic pain self-management specialist, solution-focused therapist, suicidologist in private practice, and author of four books, including Girl of Light & Shadow: A Memoir of My Daughter, Who Killed Herself (2022).
To write that book, I read several hundred books and peer-reviewed scientific papers on suicide theory, suicide bereavement, the science of grief, social and emotional neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and anthropology, behavioral genetics and epigenetics, childhood adversity and developmental trauma, the biology of physical and social pain, mental health and illness, psychiatric diagnosis, medication and treatment, and dozens of heart-breaking stories of suicide grief and loss.
In studying modern, well-researched theories of suicide, trying to make sense of my own daughter’s final, fatal act, I began to detect something curious that (almost) no one else in suicidology seems to have noticed – a hidden scientific consensus on why people kill themselves.
THREE BASIC, INTERLOCKING FACTORS appear repeatedly in the academic literature of suicide (albeit, often under different terms): (1) the presence of multiple varieties of what psychologists and neuroscientists call “social pain” and injury, (2) a sense of defeat, hopelessness or “entrapment”, and (3) at least one definitive “means of escape” from the seemingly inescapable trap of social pain.
I call this the Social Pain, Entrapment & Escape Theory™ of suicide. I believe this single, comprehensive, easy-to-grasp model can explain (nearly) any suicide today or in the past. A bold claim, I know. But it’s backed up by science. While I have concluded that suicide is (largely) comprehensible, I’m not convinced it is either predictable or wholly preventable. Currently, I’m researching and writing a book about this.
Meanwhile, if you’re desperate to discover real answers to the supposedly unanswerable Why Question that haunts nearly every suicide loss survivor, let’s talk.
Some questions will ruin if you are denied the answer long enough. — Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation
After my own intellectually and emotionally intense three-year “forensic investigation”, I successfully made sense of my daughter’s fearsome fate, which proved transformative. I believe that, by doing so, I short-circuited the potential emergence of PTSD, major depression, or complicated grief – conditions that afflict multitudes of other survivors.
With the tools and techniques, knowledge and insight that I’ve acquired on this demanding, yet existentially satisfying journey, I suspect I can help you, too, in understanding and explaining why your loved one ultimately chose to end his, her, or their own life.
I CAN WORK WITH INDIVIDUALS OR FAMILIES to conduct a personal “biopsychosocial autopsy” of the suicide of a loved one, to construct a coherent narrative of what happened and why, even to create a written memorial honoring the unique beauty and complexity of their life, as I did by researching and writing a memoir about my daughter.
To get an idea of how the process might work, see my presentation “The Why Question & the Healing Power of Narrative” for suicide loss survivors and mental health professionals at the May 2023 “Bridging the Divide” Conference of the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado (for the pdf, search: valusek the why question researchgate).
My LinkedIn profile: www.linkedin.com/in/jayevalusek.
