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In earlier chapters attention is drawn to the fact that, although the death-rates for men and women of an age likely to have children are relatively low, the proportion of deaths due to suicide is high when compared to that for men and women in other age groups. This means that relative to deaths due to other causes the death of a child's parent by suicide is not altogether uncommon. Indeed, British figures suggest that for children born to parents in their twenties it may be as high as one father in fifteen and one mother in seventeen who die.1
Considering the traumatic circumstances surrounding a death due to suicide and the strong tendency to conceal the facts from children it would be no surprise were the loss of a parent by suicide to lead to an incidence of, and perhaps a degree of, psychopathology appreciably higher than for deaths due to other causes. Adequate data are lacking but such as are available point to both those propositions being likely.
Evidence stems both from survey data and from therapeutic studies.