| T |
|
| Talk therapy |
Counseling and various forms of psychotherapy. |
| Tarasoff rule |
Therapists must disclose client's threat to harm others. |
| TCA |
Tricyclic antidepressant; traditional drug therapy for depression. |
| Terminal |
Last phase of a fatal illness or condition. |
| Terminally ill |
Medical prognosis of death in six months or less, generally. |
| Tertiary prevention |
Attempt to lessen long-term effects of a problem. |
| Thanatology |
Study of death, dying, bereavement, and grief. |
| Therapeutic alliance |
Collaborative relationship with client established by therapist (Simon). |
| Therapeutic privilege |
Physician withholding of information from a patient in the best interest of the patient. |
| To Live Again (TLA) |
Support group for those who lost spouses or partners |
| Trauma |
Threatening event causing feelings of fear, helplessness, and horror (DSM-IV). |
| Traumatic loss |
Death that is sudden, unexpected, preventable and/or of a child. |
| Traumatic shock |
Psychological state after an significant abnormal life experience. |
| Trigger |
Factor which initiates and aggravates behavior or response. |
Tryptophan hydroxylase
(TPH) |
Enzyme associated with serotonin; a marker. |
| Tunnel vision |
View that life=pain vs. death=no pain; see constriction. |
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|
| U |
|
| Underlying illness |
Condition causing secondary manifestation of symptoms. |
| Under-reporting |
Incidence of suicides not officially recorded as such. |
| Under-served |
Inadequacy of existing services to the needs of a community or population. |
| Undertreatment |
Delivery of a lesser quantity, quality, or range of care than indicated by an individual's need. |
| Undetermined intent |
Classification of a death or an injury
where victim's intentions are unclear. |
| Unethical |
Action inconsistent with adopted ethical code or values. |
| Unexpected loss syndrome |
Abnormal grief reaction associated with unexpected loss. |
| Unfinished business |
Personal concerns or obligations to be resolved before death. |
| Unintentional underreporting |
Mistaken mis-attribution of the cause of death in a suicide. |
| Unreported suicide |
Completion that is misclassified or which cannot be conclusively classified as a suicide. |
| Universal intervention |
Preventative measures directed at an entire population. |
| Unnatural death |
Tragic, sudden, unexpected loss; loss of a child; homicide, suicide, etc. |
| Unresolved grief |
Disrupted grieving process (e.g., delayed grief). |
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|
| V |
|
| Validation |
Learning from experience of other suicide grievers that "I'm not crazy." |
| Vehicular suicide |
Completion by stepping into path of a vehicle or using a vehicle as means. |
| Ventured suicide |
High risk behavior without suicidal intent (Baechler). |
| Veracity |
Ethical duty to not deceive others. |
| Verbal clues |
Spoken references to suicidal intent. |
| Victim |
One harmed by circumstances beyond their control. |
| Victim-precipitated homicide |
See suicide-by-cop (parent). |
| Vigilance |
Grief state involving awareness of loss without constant focus (Smith). |
| Violent means |
Suicide by firearms, hanging, slashing, falls. |
| Voluntary |
Freely chosen individual action without coercion. |
| Vulnerability factor |
Condition predisposing an individual to greater than normal risk (Ayd). |
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|
| W |
|
| Warning sign |
Overt indicator of suicidal risk of an individual. |
| Weather forecast |
Metaphor characterizing the fluctuating level of risk in a suicidal individual (Simon). |
| Werther effect |
Concept of completion or suicidal behavior as a consequence of mass media accounts of suicide (Phillips). |
| What-iffing guilt |
Suicide griever obsession with "what if...?" (They did or did not do something.) (Wrobleski). |
| White man's disease |
Allusion to predominance of adult white males among suicide victims. |
| Withdrawn behavior |
Apathetic and unresponsive emotional state. |
| Work of grief |
Release from ties to deceased (Freud). |
| Working through grief |
Purposeful individual effort to resolve personal grief. |
| Wrobleski, Adina |
Suicide survivor; authored a number of books for/about survivors. |
| Wrongful death |
Death caused by negligence or other wrongful act. |
