Grieving with Guardrails

By Isobel Whitcomb

September 2025

In the late 18th century, European newspapers reported a troubling phenomenon: a number of suicide deaths among young men, all dressed in a yellow waistcoat, blue jacket and high boots. The men, it seemed, had all read the new bestselling novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The book followed a character named Werther, who falls deeper and deeper into a despair caused by unrequited love. At the end of the book, Werther — whose attire was the inspiration for the uniform worn by readers — dies by suicide.

The phenomenon would later be called “The Werther effect.” It was one of the earliest documented examples of suicide contagion, where one death by suicide — even a fictitious one — triggers others, in what’s known as “cluster.”

Today, we understand the factors that may have contributed to the suicide cluster following Goethe’s novel: The writing was maudlin in tone and romanticized the protagonist’s death; it described the method of suicide and was graphic in detail. These factors are well-researched because contagion, while rare, poses a real risk following a death by suicide. Research suggests 1–5% of suicides are attributable to this effect — a small percentage that nonetheless could represent thousands of deaths each year.

Contagion is preventable. Communities can take evidence-based steps to minimize its risk, both proactively and following a death by suicide. Counselors play a key role in this response. From education to triage, counselors can help protect those most vulnerable to the effects of contagion.

Why Contagion Occurs

It’s difficult to say why suicide contagion happens: No suicide is caused by one thing, and every community is unique, says Darcy Haag Granello, PhD, LPCC-S, the founding director of The Ohio State University Suicide Prevention Program and a professor of counselor education. “Everything about suicide is incredibly complex, and suicide contagion is one of the most complex things we run into,” Haag Granello says.

First, people should understand there are two kinds of suicide clusters: “Mass clusters” occur over a widespread population, often following a highly publicized suicide death, while “point clusters” occur in a defined geographical location, such as a town or school. For point clusters specifically, the sheer trauma of the suicide death may make other community members more vulnerable to suicidal ideation, says Kurt Michael, PhD, senior clinical director of the Jed Foundation, a mental health nonprofit devoted to suicide prevention among teens and young adults. “It’s jolting and hard to wrap your brain around,” Michael says. Some community members may experience survivor’s guilt or feel they should have intervened. In addition, the taboo nature of suicide can make it difficult to process the event or ask for help.

In both mass and point clusters, one death tends to act as an impetus for people who might already be at risk of suicide, whether due to mental illness or a history of suicidal thoughts. “It seems to open it up as an option to escape,” Haag Granello says. That effect seems most pronounced among those who identify strongly with the person who died. For example, after the death of comedian Robin Williams, suicide deaths increased by 10% in the next two months, most markedly among middle-aged men.

The way we communicate about a suicide death — among community members and institutions, in the news media, or on online — compounds that effect. Language that romanticizes suicide, glorifies the person who died or shares graphic details of the death heighten the risk of contagion. Even memorial installations or trees planted for the deceased person can unintentionally suggest a vulnerable individual might be remembered better in death. Haag Granello says she’s worked with schools where a well-intentioned response to a student suicide leads to a second, identical death. “The second student sees the way I become famous or gain notoriety is to die,” Haag Granello says.

Prevention in Schools

Certain communities are at higher risk of contagion than others. “You can see it in workplaces, religious communities, towns, anywhere there is a unifying fabric of community,” says Neil Leibowitz, MD, JD, a practicing psychiatrist and head of behavioral health for insurance provider EmblemHealth. The most vulnerable communities are schools, both K–12 and higher education, Leibowitz says.

For that reason, it’s critical schools have a plan for how they’ll respond to a suicide death before such a crisis occurs, says Monica Osburn, LCMHCS, executive director of the Counseling Center and Prevention Services at North Carolina State University. “The best way to prevent contagion is really good planning.”

The plan should include details such as who packs the deceased student’s room, how the suicide will be communicated and how the school will handle memorials and related events, which can be triggering to other community members. This planning and the response itself, called “postvention,” shouldn’t all fall to the counseling center, Osburn says. Schools need to put together a postvention team with clearly defined responsibilities. “The counselors shouldn’t be asking these questions,” Osburn says, “This should be the dean of students, the administration. School systems really need to hear that.”

However, school counselors play several important roles in postvention planning and response. The first is education: Outside of a crisis, counselors can educate members of the postvention response team, staff, student leaders and even the outside community on the dos and don’ts of suicide response — from safe language to appropriate memorials, Osburn says. Every year, trainings are offered for groups such as fraternities and sororities, residential hall leaders and the campus newspaper.

Education can also extend to the local media, Haag Granello says. Once, following a suicide in her neighborhood park, she noticed reporters flocking to the scene. “I ran upstairs and I printed out copy after copy of the media guidelines for reporting on suicide. Then I ran around to every media person and handed them out,” Haag Granello says. She can’t say for sure if it was because of her efforts, but she noticed that beyond a brief note buried in the back pages of a local newspaper, not one publication mentioned the death — a decision that may have saved lives.

“From that moment I’ve been on a crusade to let people know about these guidelines,” Haag Granello says. While counselors might not have the opportunity to directly confront the media in this way, they can proactively — or in the wake of a student death — send copies of the media guidelines for reporting on suicide, Haag Granello says.

After a Suicide

Following a student suicide, the most important action counselors can take to prevent contagion is screening for students at risk, then referring those students to the appropriate mental health resources, Michael says.

This screening process can begin with group listening sessions, where there’s no agenda. Groups should be small and begin with those who regularly interacted with the student who died, such as sports teams, friends, classmates or members of the same residence hall, Osburn says.

Counselors can also drop off resources with community leaders: coaches, fraternity or sorority leaders, and resident assistants. However, they should make sure they’re casting a net beyond the deceased student’s immediate social network, Haag Granello says.

“The data tells us that it’s actually the people who are in the next tier, who are acquaintances or maybe knew this person’s name, that seem to be at higher risk,” she says. That could be because those are the people that immediate outreach tends to miss.

To find vulnerable individuals who otherwise might get overlooked, Michael suggests using students as a resource. “Not only are we asking, ‘How are you doing?,’ but we’re also asking, ‘Do you have any friends that we can check in on?’,” Michael says.

In community announcements and listening sessions, counselors should also address social media, Michael says. Students may use online platforms to share memories, post about their grief or hunt for details about the death — behaviors that contribute to contagion.

“I would urge caution for young people,” Michael says. “I would advise them to consume social media with a cautious eye and not talk about specifics.”

Beyond Campus

Counselors don’t have to work in a school to help prevent suicide contagion. Within any other organizations, the same best practices apply — assembling a postvention team, education and risk screening, Leibowitz says. Other groups that experience higher risk of contagion include the military, police precincts and Indigenous communities, Haag Granello says.

Counselors working in private practice can play a role, too. Michael suggests joining a list of volunteer crisis responders — schools and other organizations often need to bring in outside help following a community member’s suicide. Counselors can also help their community in an educational capacity by leading community workshops, giving public presentations or bringing in speakers on safe suicide response, Michael adds.

Regardless of where a counselor works, their role in preventing contagion is to help the community process a death in a safe way. “When there is a loss in a community, people are going to grieve,” Osburn says. “We need to encourage that grief to happen, but in a healthy, productive way.”