Parent suicide: pathways of effects into the third generation

There is a slim, slowly emerging literature addressing the impact of parent suicide upon children. By contrast with some other potentially pathogenic contexts for children (e.g., physical abuse), there has been virtually no exploration of the effect of a parent's suicide upon his or her children's parenting, that is, the transmission into a third generation of the sequelae of the original parent suicide. Based primarily on clinical and preventive work with adult "children of suicide" and their families, this paper begins to map some of the paths, direct and transparent or subterranean and disguised, that such experiences take into further generations. Patterns described include massive indulgence, communication of dire expectations, vicissitudes of family secrets, life-blanching living down the shame, defensive barriers against depressive affects, as well as dread-filled avoidance of producing a third generation.