The thought experiment “When You Meet Your Brother” is an intervention which can be used for patients with suicidal tendencies. The patient’s family structures and the values of both the patient and any predeceased family members are used as a basis for demonstrating that life is worth living. This prevents “copycat deaths” and utilises the patient’s bond with these individuals by hypothesising what they would think about the planned suicide.

The dialogue can alternatively be used with individuals who are (or feel) responsible for the death of another person.

The living person can ask questions or offer apologies, while the deceased person provides a fictitious (but often realistic) opinion on what is said. In my experience the deceased are kind-hearted, and the outcome of such a dialogue is almost always (with the possible exception of murders) that the deceased denies any guilt on the part of the individual who is still living, or forgives him or her. If an outcome of this kind cannot be achieved, the therapist should mediate between the two sides – one fictitious and one real – in order to ensure that each side has the best possible opinion of the other, for example using methods from systemic counselling, family constellation therapy, Gestalt therapy or ego state therapy. Interventions of this kind can also be used to travel to heaven or another meeting point to say farewell to an individual – or a pet – in cases where a final farewell was impossible before their death.

When you’re on the other side, and have escaped this world – a world I can see you’re eager to leave – and when, after arriving, you meet your mother and say, “Hello Mum, I’m here already! I decided to catch an earlier train, as you might say,” what will she reply? What questions will she ask? And when you meet your brother, who died before you, how will he greet you? What will you tell him, and how will you answer him?