Is Suicide Contagion Real?

With the popularity of the Netflix hit teenage high school show, “13 Reasons Why,” there’s been some debate among mental health care professionals and researchers as to whether an actual “suicide contagion” exists. Would such a contagion effect apply to something like a fictional TV series? Is suicide contagion a real thing? And if so, is it really something we need to be concerned about as much in this day and age of instant entertainment and information available on the Internet, where people’s graphic depictions of self harm and suicide stories are always just a single click away for any teen to view as much as they’d like? We’ve previously written about the positive impact of ’13 Reasons Why’ and Haley Elizabeth Roberts, LBSW added many more reasons why this series is so important to understanding teen’s mental health. It’s an important topic and one that shouldn’t be hidden from public view because of a misunderstanding of research about the theory of “suicide contagion.” The theory of ‘suicide contagion’ remains controversial among researchers, with mixed proof from the scientific research. As Randall et al. (2015) put it: One particular area of sustained controversy has been whether the occurrence of suicide clusters indicates the existence of ‘suicide contagion’ (Davidson & Gould, 1989; Gould et al., 1994; Joiner, 2003, 1999; McKenzie et al., 2005; Robbins ...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Celebrities Children and Teens General Minding the Media Research Suicide Technology 13 Reasons Why depiction of suicide is suicide contagious suicidal contagion Suicide contagion suicide in movies suicide on tv Source Type: blogs