It is tempting to place the blame for the recent rash of “imitation” teenage suicides on the shoulders of the internet. But the phenomenon is not new. For centuries science and literature have recorded the terrible allure that the self-inflicted death of a young and beautiful person can have for their depressed or vulnerable contemporaries.

In the 18th century it was given a name: the Werther Effect – after Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. In the novel a young man shoots himself over his love for a young woman. Its publication in 1774 gave rise to an epidemic of suicides and the book was banned in several countries.

What seems to be the consistent lethal factor in copycat suicides is the death being glamorised in any way. This can happen on internet “memorial” sites but experts say that even public eulogies describing the victim as courageous, or flags flown at half-mast, can be interpreted “positively”, giving the impression that this was the act of a well person.

Patricia Casey, Professor of Psychiatry at University College Dublin, gives warning that for some of those left behind after a suicide, watching the dead person being hailed and honoured can be dangerous. “If they haven’t had much recognition in life it can be seen as a way to get the adulation and attention that they have missed . . . through death,” she says. “When we talk of a suicide we must be careful to refer to it in terms of something that brings only tragedy and suffering. There is a fine line between condemning the act without condemning the person. People can lose sight of that nuance.”

In the past year there have been three separate suicide spates in small British towns. Last summer three teenage boys from Craigavon, Co Armagh, hanged themselves – two of them after attending the funeral of the first. In Gnosall, Staffordshire, a village of only 4,000 people, there were six suicides in 12 months. In this case the local media took the unusual step of not reporting the suicides lest it exacerbated the problem. The Bridgend suicides will add to the growing concern that suicidal behaviour is somehow “contagious”. It will also add to the calls for “suicide websites” to be closed down.

Instant access to like-minded people helps to normalise what was once a huge taboo. Inhibitions may be eroded. But some academics have also noted that since the 19th century, increased incidence of suicide has coincided with a decline in religious observance. Spirituality and religious belief once afforded a greater protection against suicide because it deemed it morally repugnant. There is evidence that men are less likely to commit suicide in a religious society regardless of their own attitude to religion. The disappearance of close-knit communities and the moral strictures therein may also have helped to relax inhibitions around taking one’s own life. Now, as the South Wales police observed, it can be seen as “cool” to have your own memorial website, achieving prestige among your peers.

Anne Parry, chair of Papyrus, a charity dedicated to preventing teenage suicides, says that it had been proved that people who are familiar with a suicide can become vulnerable themselves. “People who are vulnerable can become influenced by another suicide. It seems to reinforce the suicidal state of mind,” she says.

This is where the internet can become perilous, with suicide chat rooms grooming young people to kill themselves. “Young people may be dying unnecessarily and being assisted by the internet,” she says. Young men who commit suicide outnumber young women by three to one.

“Talking to people who feel like you can make you feel worse. A strong message to send out is that everybody has black, dark moments. They can come through them. If a suicide has taken place parents need to let their child know they can talk about it,” Parry says.

As Casey notes, copycat suicides have been recognised for centuries, with suicide clusters leading to some of the ancient sanctions against the suicide. Parry cites Romeo and Juliet as romanticising teenage suicide. The best thing we can all do, it seems, it to debunk the idea that dying young by your own hand is in any way exotic.

Papyrus helpline: 0870 1704000

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