Copycat Suicides When Suicides Comes in clusters

Copycat Suicides
Werther Effect
When Suicides Comes in clusters

Introduction
• A copycat suicide is defined as an emulation
of another suicide that the person
attempting suicide knows about either from
local knowledge or due to accounts or
depictions of the original suicide on television
and in other media.

Introduction
• A spike of emulation suicides after a widely
publicized suicide is known as the Werther
effect, following Goethe's novel The Sorrows
of Young Werther

Introduction
• The publicized suicide serves as a trigger, in
the absence of protective factors, for the next
suicide by a susceptible or suggestible person.
This is referred to as suicide contagion

Introduction
• They occasionally spread through a school
system, through a community, or in terms of a
celebrity suicide wave, nationally. This is
called a suicide cluster.

Introduction
• Suicide clusters are caused by the social
learning of suicide-related behaviours, or
"copycat suicides".
• Point clusters are clusters of suicides in both time
and space, and have been linked to direct social
learning from nearby individuals.
• Mass clusters are clusters of suicides in time
but not space, and have been linked to the
broadcasting of information concerning
celebrity suicides via the mass media

History
• One of the earliest known associations
between the media and suicide arose from
Goethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen
Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther).
• Soon after its publication in 1774, young
men began to mimic the main character by
dressing in yellow pants and blue jackets.

History
• In the novel, Werther shoots himself with a
pistol after he is rejected by the woman he
loves, and shortly after its publication there
were reports of young men using the same
method to kill themselves in acts of
hopelessness.

History
• This resulted in the book being banned in
several places.
• Hence the term "Werther effect", used in the
technical literature to designate copycat
suicides.

History
• “Copycat Suicides” The term was coined by
researcher David Phillips in 1974
• Reports in 1985 and 1989 by Phillips and his
colleagues found that suicides and other
accidents seem to rise after a well-publicized
suicide

Demographic Factors
• People who are young or old – but not middle-
aged – seem to be most susceptible to this
effect. At least five percent of youth suicides
may be influenced by contagion
• Due to the effects of differential
identification, the people who attempt to
copy a suicidal act tend to have the same
age and gender as the triggering suicide.

Timing
• These suicidal actions tend to happen in the
days and sometimes weeks after a suicide is
announced.
• In exceptional cases, such as a widely
discussed suicide by a celebrity, an increased
level of thinking about suicide may persist for
up to one year.

Factors In Suicide Reporting
• Copycat suicide is mostly blamed on the media.
• A study conducted in 2002 found evidence for "the
influence of media on suicidal behaviour has been shown
for newspaper and television reports of actual suicides, film
and television portrayals of suicides, and suicide in
literature, especially suicide.
• "Hearing about a suicide seems to make those who are
vulnerable feel they have permission to do it," Phillips
said.
• He cited studies that showed that people were more
likely to engage in dangerous deviant behavior, such as
drug taking, if someone else had set the example first.

• The Werther effect not only predicts an
increase in suicide, but the majority of the
suicides will take place in the same or a similar
way as the one publicized.
• The more similar the person in the publicized
suicide is to the people exposed to the information
about it, the more likely the age group or
demographic is to die by suicide.
• The increase generally happens only in areas
where the suicide story was highly publicized

• Upon learning of someone else's suicide,
some people decide that action may be
appropriate for them as well, especially if
the publicized suicide was of someone in a
situation similar to their own.

• Publishing the means of suicides, romanticized
and sensationalized reporting, particularly
about celebrities, suggestions that there is an
epidemic, glorifying the deceased and
simplifying the reasons all lead to increases in the
suicide rate.
• People may see suicide as a glamorous ending,
with the young person or elderly person getting
a lot of attention, lots of sympathy, and lots of
national concern that they never got in life.

• Increased rate of suicides has been shown to occur
up to ten days after a television report. Studies in
Japan and Germany have replicated findings of an
imitative effect.
• In an Austrian study showed a strong correlation
between the number of papers distributed in various
areas and the number of subsequent firearm suicides in
each area after a related media report.
• Higher rates of copycat suicides have been found in
those with similarities in race, age, and genderto the
victim in the original report.

• Studies show a high incidence of psychiatric
disorders in suicide victims at the time of their
death with the total figure ranging from
87.3% to 98%, with mood disorders and
substance abuse being the two most
common

Social Proof Model
• An alternate model to explain copycat suicide,
called "social proof" by Cialdini
• In the social proof model, people imitate those
who seem similar, despite or even because of
societal disapproval.
• This model is important because it has
nearly opposite ramifications for what the
media ought to do about the copycat suicide
effect than the standard model does

Social Proof Model
• To deal with this problem, Alex Mesoudi of Queen Mary
University of London, developed a computer model of a
community of 1000 people, to examine how copycat
suicides occur.
• These were divided into 100 groups of 10, in a model
designed to represent different levels of social organization,
such as schools or hospitals within a town or state. Mesoudi
then circulated the simulation through 100 generations.
• He found the simulated people acted just as sociologists'
theory predicted. They were more likely to die by suicide
in clusters, either because they had learned this trait
from their friends, or because suicidal people are more
likely to be like one another

Journalism Codes
• Various countries have national journalism
codes which range from one extreme of,
"Suicide and attempted suicide should in
general never be given any mention" (Norway)
to a more moderate, "In cases of suicide,
publishing or broadcasting information in
an exaggerated way that goes beyond
normal dimensions of reporting with the
purpose of influencing readers or spectators
should not occur.

Journalism Codes
• The study's author, University of London
psychologist Alex Mesoudi, recommends that
reporters follow the sort of guidelines the
World Health Organization and others endorse
for coverage of any suicide: Use extreme
restraint in covering these deaths—keep the
word "suicide" out of the headline, don't
romanticize the death, and limit the number
of stories

Journalism Codes
• Photography, pictures, visual images or film depicting
such cases should not be made public" (Turkey)
• While many countries do not have national codes, media
outlets still often have in-house guidelines along similar
lines.
• In the United States, there are no industry-wide standards. A
survey of in-house guides of 16 US daily newspapers
showed that only three mentioned the word suicide, and
none gave guidelines about publishing the method of
suicide. Craig Branson, online director of the American
Society of News Editors (ASNE), has been quoted as
saying, "Industry codes are very generic and totally
voluntary. Most ethical decisions are left to individual
editors at individual papers.

Journalist Training
• Journalist Training
• Australia is one of the few countries where there is a
concerted effort to teach journalism students about this
subject.
• The Mind-frame national media initiative followed an
ambivalent response by the Australian Press Council to
an earlier media resource kit issued by Suicide
Prevention Australia and the Australian Institute for
Suicide Research and Prevention.
• The UK-based media ethics charity MediaWise
provides training for journalists on reporting suicide
and related issues.

Prevention
• Prevention
• The Papageno effect is the effect that mass
media can have by presenting non-suicide
alternatives to crises. It is named after a
lovelorn character, Papageno, from the 18th-
century opera The Magic Flute; he was
contemplating suicide until other characters
showed him a different way to resolve his
problems

Prevention
• There is more research into the damage done
by "irresponsible media reports" than into
the protective effects of positive stories, but
when newspapers refuse to publicize suicide
events or change the way that they provide
information about suicide events, the risk of
copycat suicides declines

Examples
• Examples of celebrities whose suicides have
triggered suicide clusters include Ruan
Lingyu, the Japanese musicians Yukiko
Okada, Miyu Uehara and hide, the South
Korean actress Choi Jin-Sil, whose suicide
caused suicide rates to rise by 162.3% and
Marilyn Monroe, whose death was followed
by an increase of 200 more suicides than
average for that August month.

celebrities whose suicides have
triggered suicide clusters
Ruan Lingyu Yukiko Okada
Choi Jin-Sil

Celebrities Whose Suicides Have
Triggered Suicide Clusters
Marilyn Monroe

Terminology
• Copycat Crime
• A copycat crime is a criminal act that is modelled or
inspired by a previous crime.
• There is also a book written by Loren Coleman called The
Copycat Effect that describes the effect that the media has
on crimes and suicides, which are inspired by crimes that
have been widely covered across the media. Coleman's view
on the media is that the constant coverage of these events,
rather than the events with a positive message, gives these
criminals a type of fame.
• The five minutes of fame, book or movie that is
dedicated to these criminals provokes individuals with a
tendency to behave in a similar way. Due to this type of
fame, the "copycat effect" takes place

Terminology
• Herd Behavior
• Herd behavior describes how individuals in a
group can act collectively without centralized
direction.
• The term can refer to the behavior of animals in
herds, packs, bird flocks, fish schools and so on,
as well as the behavior of humans in
demonstrations, riots and general strikes, sporting
events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob
violence and everyday decision-making,
judgement and opinion-forming.

Terminology
• Meme
• A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from
person to person within a culture—often with the aim of
conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning
represented by the meme
• A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas,
symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one
mind to another through writing, speech, gestures,
rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked
theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as
cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate,
mutate, and respond to selective pressures

Terminology
• Assisted Suicide
• Assisted suicide is suicide committed with the aid of
another person, sometimes a physician. The term is
often used interchangeably with physician-assisted
suicide (PAS), which involves a doctor "knowingly and
intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or
means or both required to commit suicide, including
counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing
such lethal doses or supplying the drugs."
• Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg,
Colombia, and Switzerland allow physicians to
physically assist in the death of patients

Terminology
• Barbiturate Automatism (Self-poisoning)
• Definition: It is taking of barbiturate tablets repeatedly,
because of mental confusion.
• Cause: The patient develops a state of toxic delirium after
ingestion of one or several doses of drug, and in the
delirium or automatism state, takes additional doses of drug
in order to get to sleep without any intention to commit
suicide and without realizing it. Medico-legal aspects:
Barbiturate automatism may be more pronounced with
alcohol consumption.
• Barbiturate in high doses is used for physician-assisted
suicide, and in combination with a muscle relaxant for
euthanasia and for capital punishment by lethal
injection.

Barbiturate Automatism
(Self-poisoning)

Terminology
• Neuro-linguistic Programming
• Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) is an approach to
communication, personal development, and psychotherapy
created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in California,
United States in the 1970s.
• NLP's creators claim there is a connection between
neurological processes (neuro-), language (linguistic) and
behavioural patterns learned through experience
(programming), and that these can be changed to achieve
specific goals in life. Bandler and Grinder also claim that
NLP methodology can "model" the skills of exceptional
people, allowing anyone to acquire those skills.

Suicide Prevention
• Suicide prevention is an umbrella term used for the
collective efforts of local citizen organizations, health
professionals and related professionals to reduce the
incidence of suicide. Beyond direct interventions to stop an
impending suicide, methods also involve
• a) treating the psychological and psycho-physiological
symptoms of depression,
• b) improving the coping strategies of persons who would
otherwise seriously consider suicide,
• c) reducing the prevalence of conditions believed to
constitute risk factors for suicide, and
• d) giving people hope for a better life after current
problems are resolved.

Risk assessment approach to suicide
prevention
• Warning signs
• Warning signs include:
• Suicidal ideation: thinking, talking, or writing about suicide,
planning for suicide
• Substance abuse
• Purposelessness
• Anxiety, agitation and unable to sleep or not sleeping all the time
• Trapped
• Hopelessness
• Social withdrawal from friends, family, or society
• Anger, rage or seeking revenge
• Recklessness or impulsiveness
• Mood changes including depression

Risk assessment approach to suicide
prevention

Suicide Prevention
• Screening
• The U.S. Surgeon General has suggested that
screening to detect those at risk of suicide may be
one of the most effective means of preventing suicide
in children and adolescents.
• There are various screening tools in the form of self-
report questionnaires to help identify those at risk such
as the Beck Hopelessness Scale and Is Path Warm?.
• A number of these self-report questionnaires have
been tested and found to be effective for use among
adolescents and young adults

Suicide Prevention
• Underlying condition
• The conservative estimate is that 10% of
individuals with psychiatric disorders may
have an undiagnosed medical condition
causing their symptoms

Suicide Prevention
• Interventions
• Many methods have been developed in an
effort to prevent suicide. The general
methods include: direct talks, screening for
risks, lethal means reduction and social
intervention. The medication lithium may be
useful in certain situations to reduce the risk of
suicide

Suicide Prevention
• Social Intervention
• Developing groups led by professionally trained individuals for
broad-based support for suicide prevention.
• Promoting community-based suicide prevention programs.
• Screening and reducing at-risk behavior through psychological
resilience programs that promotes optimism and connectedness.
• Education about suicide, including risk factors, warning signs,
stigma related issues and the availability of help through social
campaigns.
• Increasing the proficiency of health and welfare services at
responding to people in need. e.g., Sponsored training for helping
professionals, Increased access to community linkages, employing
crisis counselling organizations.
• Reducing domestic violence and substance abuse through legal
and empowerment means are long-term strategies.

Suicide Prevention
• Post-vention
• Post-vention is for people affected by an
individual's suicide, this intervention
facilitates grieving, guides to reduce guilt,
anxiety, and depression and to decrease the
effects of trauma.

Suicide Prevention
• Medication
• Recent research has shown that lithium has
been effective with lowering the risk of suicide
in those with bipolar disorder to the same
levels as the general population.
• Lithium has also proven effective in
lowering the suicide risk in those with
unipolar depression as well

Suicide Prevention
• Counselling
• There are multiple evidence-based
psychotherapeutic talk therapies available to
reduce suicidal ideation such as dialectical
behavior therapy (DBT) for which multiple
studies have reported varying degrees of
clinical effectiveness in reducing suicidality.

Suicide Prevention
• Support groups
• Many non-profit organizations exist, which
serve as crisis hotlines;

Suicide Prevention
• Preventative Factors
• Individuals with access to proper mental
health care, a sense of belonging, good
problem solving skills, and a system of
beliefs that discourages suicide are less likely
to attempt suicide

Helplines in India That Hear & Help People
Struggling With Depression & Suicidal Thoughts
• Sumaitri, Delhi
• A crisis intervention centre for the depressed and
suicidal, this voluntary organisation in the Indian
Capital has been running since 1998.
• They have served over 1 lakh callers, and the
organisation has also assisted and counselled callers
from other cities besides Delhi.
• Write to Sumaitrai at feelingsuicidal@sumaitri.net
or call the helpline numbers 011-23389090. The
helpline is functional from Monday to Friday
between 2pm and 10pm and from 10am to 10pm on
weekends.

• 2. Lifeline Foundation, Kolkata
• Founded in 1996, Lifeline Foundation has counselled
thousands of people over two decades and remains
one of West Bengal’s most well-known helplines for
the depressed and desperate.
• The volunteer-driven initiative aims to contain the
suicides rates in Kolkata and moffusil towns and
cities, and also supports survivors, families and
friends. Call the helpline on +913324637401/7432
or write to reach@lifelinekolkata.org.

• Roshni, Hyderabad
• Offering a platform for distress and suicide
calls, Roshni has been operational in Hyderabad
since 1997.
• From exam-related stress to loneliness, the NGO
volunteers listen to callers afflicted with a variety
of mental health issues, enabling them to
overcome depression and suicidal instincts.
• The Roshni helpline is operational everyday
from 11am to 9pm. Call +914066202000/2001
for help, or email roshnihelp@gmail.com.

• Maithri, Kochi
• Founded with the objective of “befriending the
friendless”, Maithri is striving to prevent suicides in
Kerala.
• Based on the idea that conversations—termed
‘ventilating’—can be cathartic for the distressed,
Maithri volunteers extend befriending services in
person, over phone, and through emails and letters.
• To visit the office or write a letter, find the address
on their website. You can also call 0484 2540530 or
email maithrihelp@gmail.com. The office is open
from 10am to 7pm every day.

• Sneha, Chennai
• Based in Chennai’s RA Puram, Sneha is a
volunteer-run organisation that hopes to lend a
helping ear to those suffering from loneliness and
depression.
• The services are free, and Sneha runs on
donations and funds generated by their in-house
range of greeting cards.
• The helpline is +914424640050/60, available 24
hours on all days of the week. You can also
email the volunteers at help@snehaindia.com.

• iCall, Mumbai
• A psycho-social helpline located at Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, trained counsellors offer support via
phone, email and social media.
• The organisation has used their phone and email data to
develop reports and publications (keeping concerns about
anonymity in mind) and also maintains directories of mental
health services, de-addiction services, police, NGOs and
lawyers.
• The helpline number is +9122 25521111, available
between 8am and 10pm from Monday to Saturday. You
can email them at icall@tiss.edu or contact via Facebook
and Twitter.

• Samaritans Mumbai
• Another Mumbai-based organisation that aims to
support individuals in emotional distress, Samaritans
takes the support of both volunteers and trained
counsellors.
• Founded in 1968, it is also the first branch of The
Samaritans, UK, to be established outside England. The
organisation was formerly known as Samaritans Bombay
and Samaritans Sahara.
• The Samaritans work out of their office in Dadar; you
can also call +91226464 3267/65653267/6565 3247 on all
days from 3pm-9pm or send an email to
samaritans.helpline@gmail.com.

• Sahai, Bangalore
• Offering help to depressed and suicidal callers
since 2002, this organisation wants everyone to
know that help is just a phone call away.
• In addition to aiding callers over phone, emails
and social media, Sahai also conducts mental
health sessions and workshops.
• Call the helpline on +9180 25497777, from
Monday to Saturday between 10am and 8pm,
or head to their official website for more
information.

• Saath, Ahmedabad
• This suicide prevention centre counsels those
dealing with distress or contemplating an end to
their lives, and also provides resources and
opportunities to help others in suicide prevention.
• Working since 1998, the organisation is run by trained
volunteers who only undertake reach out to students,
terminally-ill patients, army personnel, senior citizens
and professional communities.
• Call them on all days, from 1pm-7pm, on +91 79
26305544/26300222 or email saath12@yahoo.com.

• Aasra is a crisis intervention center for the
lonely, distressed and suicidal.
• Aasra functions as a unit of Befrienders
Worldwide/Samaritans and is a non-religious,
non-political and non-sectarian organization,
registered as a Public Charity under the Bombay
Charity Act, 1960 (Registration No. E 2047).
Befrienders Worldwide/Samaritans has been
working in the field of crisis intervention/areas of
emotional and mental health since 1960.

• Hope Helpline, Kota
• Located in Rajasthan, Kota is famous for its
education centre just as it is infamous for the
student suicides due to stress and lack of support.
In 2016, the Hope Helpline, an erstwhile support
system for students, was revived by the district
administration with help from local coaching
centres.
• The helpline service is available for students
across the country, who can speak to
volunteers by calling 0724 433 3666.

References
• For Journalists
• The place for journalists to find all the latest
from the American Foundation for
Suicide Prevention.
• https://youtu.be/H44tfaLvp8I

References
• Preventing suicide: a resource for media
professionals
• http://www.who.int/mental_health/suicide-
prevention/resource_booklet_2017/en/

References
• Copycat Crime
Https://En.Wikipedia.Org/Wiki/Copycat_crime
• Copycat Suicide
Https://En.Wikipedia.Org/Wiki/Copycat_suicide
• Celebrity Suicides Trigger Copycat Deaths By Same Method
Https://Www.Medscape.Com/Viewarticle/896452
• The Werther Effect – About The Handling Of Suicide In The Media
Https://Www.Openaccessgovernment.Org/The-werther-effect/42915/
• When Suicides Come In Clusters
Https://Www.Psychologytoday.Com/Us/Blog/Media-spotlight/201208/When-suicides-come-in-
clusters
• 13 Helplines That Hear & Help People Struggling With Depression & Suicidal Thoughts
Https://Www.Thebetterindia.Com/94553/Suicide-helplines-india/

Copycat Suicides When Suicides Comes in clusters

Copycat Suicides When Suicides Comes in clusters

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