Grief & Suicide Terms |
Grief & suicide terms, words and phrases are often used by crisis counselors and others in the health-care field. You can study these and/or copy them to your dictionary.
| Abandonment | Unilateral discontinuation of patient relationship and treatment by a clinician. |
| Abnormal grief | Prolonged, difficult, complicated response associated with traumatic loss. See unresolved grief. |
| Abnormal grief reaction | Individual behavioral and/or emotional condition caused by a severe loss. |
| Abuser | Individual that engages in substance abuse. |
| Access | Capability of an individual or group to receive needed services. |
| Accessibility | Proximity to lethal means by a suicidal individual. |
| Active euthanasia | See direct euthanasia. |
| Active intervention | Activities that involve a change of behavior by an at-risk individual. |
| Active listening | Hotline intervention technique to reaffirm what caller says he/she feels. |
| Active suicidal ideation | State of acute thought of completing suicide associated with imminent risk (Sivak et al.) |
| acute | Sharp, sudden, severe or short-term (e.g., acute grief). |
| Acute mourning | Initial phase of disorientation, dulled senses, denial, yearning. |
| Acute psychiatric crisis | Individual that is suicidal, psychotic, or experiencing other severe trauma. |
| Acute stress reaction | Individual response to traumatic external event lasting 3 months or less. |
| Acute suicide threat | Individual has lethal means and voices intent. |
| Adjunctive therapy | Occupational, recreational, creative therapies used with other treatments or alone. |
| Adolescent suicide | Completion of suicide by a youth between ages 11-18. |
| Adolescent suicide syndrome |
Characterized by impulsiveness, reactive, aggression towards self, social loss. |
| Adult suicide | Completion of suicide by an individual between ages 19-64. |
| Adverse event | Unforeseen or unexpected and undesired outcome of medical treatment. |
| Affect | Psychological state, e.g., feeling, mood, demeanor, or emotion. |
| Affective education | School program to help students better understand their feelings and recognize risk. |
| Aftercare | Post-loss support services to the bereaved or other traumatized individuals. See post-vention. |
| Age-correspondence reaction |
Acute grief triggered by age similarity to lost loved one. |
| Age-specific | Suicide rate broken down by age groupings (see Cohort). |
| Agenerative suicide | Caused by personal alienation (Shneidman). |
| Agitation | Extreme restlessness common in individuals in suicidal crisis (see psychomotor agitation). |
| Alcohol myopia | Effect of alcohol on thought processes that may be associated with a propensity to suicide (Rogers). |
| Alienation | Feeling of being apart from or unattached to others. |
| Alliance for safety | Joint plan between clinician and client with shared goal to prevent suicide (Gutheil). |
| Altruistic suicide | Suicide as self-sacrifice (Durkheim). |
| Ambiguous grief | Occurs when loss is psychologically felt but not physically confirmed. |
| Ambivalence | Suicidal individual's wish to both live and die. |
| Ambivalent attempt | Attempted suicide involving nonlethal means and felt to not be intended to result in death. |
| Amputation metaphor | Loss analogy commonly used by grieving parents (e.g., loss of child like loss of limb). |
| Anaclitic depression | Depressive disorder caused by loss of parent or other dependent relationship. |
| Analgesia | The process and outcome of relieving or reducing pain. |
| Analgesic | Medication that controls or reduces pain. |
| Anatomy of melancholy | Text by Robert Burton (1577-1640) giving first modern interpretation of suicide. |
| Anhedonia | Inability to experience pleasure; a traumatic loss reaction. |
| Anniversary reaction | Worsening or return of grieving on dates related to the loss. |
| Anniversary trigger | Idea that people tend to die near key dates in their lives. |
| Anomic suicide | Type caused by a disrupted relationship (Durkheim). |
| Anticipatory grief | Grief in expectation of a terminally ill loved one's death (Lindemann). |
| Antidepressants | Psychotropic medications used to treat depression. |
| Anti-Suicide Bureau | First "crisis center" established by The Salvation Army in 1906. |
| Anti-suicide contract | See no suicide contract and alliance for safety. |
| Anxiolytics | Medications that reduce anxiety. |
| Appropriate death | Terminally ill individual's chosen manner of dying. |
| Assisted suicide | Completion of suicide by a terminally ill or suffering individual with the aid of a physician or other clinician. |
| Assumptive world | Griever's personal values and beliefs undermined or disrupted by her/his loss. |
| Asymptomatic | Without symptoms or signs of disease or disorder. |
| Attempted suicide | Unsuccessful, potentially lethal effort to complete suicide. |
| At-risk | Subject to the possibility of suicide, or other harmful outcomes. |
| Autocide | Use of a motor vehicle to complete suicide. |
| Auto-euthanasia | Euphemism for suicide involving a suffering individual. |
| Autonomy | Ethical principle of individual self-determination. |
| Autopsy | Examination of a body to determine the cause of death and other medical information. |
| Availability | Presence of a resource (e.g., support group) that may be needed by an individual or group. |
| Availability of means | Accessibility to lethal means by a suicidal individual. |
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