Psychological autopsies

From time to time incidents of suspicious death occur in which the mental state of a deceased person needs to be assessed. If some evaluation can be made of the sort of person they were, their personality and thought processes, especially as that may throw light on any involvement they themselves had in their death, then it may assist the investigation of what is sometimes referred to as ‘equivocal death’. Such an evaluation, known as a psychological autopsy is an attempt to reconstruct a person’s psychological state prior to death.