Psychological Autopsy of Prominent Suicide Cases

Psychological Autopsy of Prominent Suicide Cases

Extensive research about the causal factors responsible for suicide is known as the psychological autopsy. Various epidemiological examinations (researches, cohort follow-up for patients that are hospitalized and/or display a specific pathology, reviews based on therapeutic history) have made it conceivable that the larger part of suicides takes place due to numerous psychopathological disturbances. These reasons account to probe for psychological autopsy in the most uncertain cases. 

 Suicide constitutes a serious public pathological state. It’s a manifestation of dangerous behavior that results from a crisis scenario typically not sufficiently recognized by others around. It affects all age classes and each sex. WHO presents the data on suicide and claims that 1 million people die due to suicide each year across the globe and that it is escalating.

There have been enormous suicide cases in India that have been the talk of the town. The most recent being the suicide of  Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput. And Rajput’s suicide has turned out to be the foremost high-profile case’s. The case right away propelled a dialog around mental wellbeing and depression with numerous claiming it to be the cause of the actor’s passing. While,  Mumbai Police at first called Sushant Singh Rajput’s passing as suicide, his family’s claim’s against Rhea Chakraborty and others for prosecuting Rajput and duping him of wealth marked a stun response as lakhs of his fans requested a test into his passing. The Actor Kangana Ranaut also highlighted nepotism as one of the causes of Rajput’s death, Late Actors, death was mourned not only in his home country but across the globe,  his fans lead parades with slogans “Justice for Sushant” and “CBI for Sushant” in the support. 

 Another case that gained everyone’s attention was the “Burari Death Case” of 2018. It was considered as a mass suicide where 11 members of the family were found dead in their Delhi home as a part of “performing a ritual”. Delhi police requested a CBI probe into the matter and psychologists have their own understanding of the case. CBI found the diaries from the house which were maintained over the span of 11 years and were analyzed extensively. It was found that one of the family members was suffering from psychosis after his father’s death. And the death was the result of shared psychosis.

In our nation, there’s a scarcity of considers with respect to the mental post-mortem examination of suicide casualties. Different psycho-social characteristics of suicide casualties within  India are intensively studied.