An Interview with Nancy Rappaport, MD. on Coming to Terms With A Parent's Suicide

An Interview with Nancy Rappaport, MD. on Coming to Terms With A Parent's Suicide. Mental Help Net (www.mentalhelp.net) presents the Wise Counsel Podcast (wisecounsel.mentalhelp.net), hosted by David Van Nuys, Ph.D. Dr. Rappaport, a Child Psychiatrist, talks with Dr. Van Nuys about her process of coming to terms with her mother's suicide (an event that occurred when Dr. Rappaport was 4 years old). This process started in earnest when she became a mother and concludes 18 years later in the form of a book. She started out writing letters to her absent parent, and later started digging for information to fill out her very incomplete knowledge, incorporating material from her mother's papers and the recollections of her mother's friends, family and associates. She describes how her understanding of the suicide evolved over time from an initial 'magical thinking' position of believing she had helped to cause it to occur, to her later appreciation of her mother from an adult perspective, and her suspicion that her mother may have had Bipolar Disorder.