ABSTRACT
Death is not an island unto itself. Death occurs in what Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972) called a “death system.” This is a network or template by which one experiences and expresses one’s relationship to mortality. Death systems are cultural specific. All societies have developed one or more death systems, most often the ways that religion taught. Kastenbaum and Aisenberg (1972) write, ”This system transmitted-or at least was intended to transmit-a relatively integrated approach that would enable individual members to think, feel and behave with respect to death in ways that they might consider to be effective and appropriate” (p. 193). The system is the belief about death, dying, and bereavement of a community, country, and so on. This applies to suicide no less than to any other death. Death systems have suicide systems.
