Chicago Tribune

In the wake of Kate Spade's death, looking at suicide differently

The list of warning factors for suicide reads, in part, like a catalog of everyday modern ills: lagging self-esteem, depression, loss of relationships or economic security, insomnia.

"When you look at those lists," says Eric Beeson, core faculty member at Northwestern University's Counseling@Northwestern, "it almost seems like who's not a candidate for suicide?" And yet, in the wake of highly publicized deaths by suicide like that of fashion designer Kate Spade and television personality Anthony Bourdain, our scrutiny of the act centers on a need to quickly settle on a cause and, on some level, to distance ourselves from it.

Spade's longtime friend Elyce Arons told The New York Times that when the subject of celebrity suicides came up

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