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Mourning at the Gate of Profession: Using Autoethnography as a Tribute and Closure to the Suicidal Death of a Client
Book chapter

Mourning at the Gate of Profession: Using Autoethnography as a Tribute and Closure to the Suicidal Death of a Client

Kate Jonathan
The Palgrave Handbook of Autoethnographic and Self-Study Education Research Methods, pp.469-482
Springer Nature Switzerland, 1st
2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-83947-4_27
Appears in  Recent Faculty of Health Publications

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Abstract

When practitioners in helping professions lose a client to suicide, it has a profound impact on them, as professionalism does not guarantee the expertise of coping with death, especially unexpected death. Loss and grief in a lifetime are inevitable, but generally no-one envisages that death by suicide would occur on their patch. When it does, practitioners are often overlooked as part of the survivors of suicide deaths in need of care. This chapter critically examines the reality of professional mourning through the author’s response to a client’s death by suicide and the absence of professional care. Grief has a distinct emotional element that could leave unsupported professionals feeling vulnerable and alone; the chapter discusses potential implications for the broader professional community.

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