Citation

Desaive P. Cahiers de Psychologie Clinique 2016; 47(2): 75-94.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

10.3917/cpc.047.0075

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The "psychological autopsy" was born in 1958 in the county of Los Angeles. It is the fruit of a collaboration between the coroner's services and the Centre for Suicide Prevention, managed by Edwin Shneidman. Its first function was to help judicial services to determine the origin of a death (natural, accidental, suicide or homicide) by gathering all available data about the victim. The initial protocol aimed at describing the victim in all domains: social, medical, psychological and in human relations by proposing a clinical reading explaining the sequence of events having led to suicide. Afterwards, the psychological autopsy has become the "golden standard" for the study of suicide and ultimately the establishing of prevention policies. Many researchers plead for a better standardization of protocols. The objective is to minimize the information bias that is inherent to any post-mortem behavioral analysis. There is also a controversy regarding the qualitative or quantitative methodology that underlies studies on suicide. Indeed, the obtained results lead to different prevention policies. Finally, the psychological autopsy has seen its usage extended to the Anglo-Saxon judicial field. In the United States, it is used to determine the mental state of the person who has committed suicide or the string of events having brought about the suicide. © De Boeck Supérieur. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.

Language: fr

Keywords

Suicide; Psychological autopsy; Expertise; Protocol