Family Therapy with Elderly Suicidal Patients: Communication and Crisis Aspects

Abstract

This article discusses the role of the family in the origins of a suicidal state, and its role in resolving the suicidal crisis, especially when family therapy is available. Death wishes, homicidal ideation, and suicide pact-and-suicide-murder ideation, are present far more frequently than is commonly realized. They all contain a constructive potential in the presence of a competent and experienced therapist. Success in therapy includes a knowledge of how to deal with the communication of suicidal impulses by the suicidal person, the family's communication of feeling burdened and fed up, and the venting of rage. Treatment is based upon the understanding that suicide is a process that is frequently handed down from one generation to the next, and includes several generations at one time. These considerations are illustrated by case examples, mostly from the experiences of the writer, demonstrating how destructive interactions can be transformed into life affirming ones.