The lived experience of parental suicide bereavement for emerging adults
Abstract
Over the past decade, research on suicide bereavement has grown. However, there remains a paucity ofresearch focused on adolescents' and emerging adults' responses to parental suicide. This existential phenomenological study was undertaken to enrich understandings of the lived experience of bereavement for young survivors of parental suicide in adolescence. Nine emerging adults, aged 20 to 27, who experienced the suicide death of a mother or father during adolescence, participated in interviews. Five overarching metathemes reveal the related elements that emerge and re-emerge to constitute the essence of parental suicide bereavement as lived by these participants: Context, Thrust into Loss, Encountering the Landscape of Suicide Bereavement, Navigating Meaning, and Bridging Loss and Adjustment. Together, these storied experiences collectively illuminate the long-term effects of parental suicide as well as factors relevant to adjustment, as these emerging adults encountered individual and relational grief processes in a landscape of life changed and shadowed by suicide bereavement. These findings are located in the context of current understandings related to grief after suicide. New and deepened insights into elements of parental suicide bereavement that are significant to survivors in the developmental phases of adolescence and emerging adulthood are discussed. Consideratiori'is given to the implications of these findings for the further development of bereavement theory;ยท future research endeavours, and counselling practice.
Description
Bibliography: p. 253-282
Includes copy of ethics approval. Original copy with original Partial Copyright Licence.
Includes copy of ethics approval. Original copy with original Partial Copyright Licence.
Keywords
Citation
Schultz, L. E. (2012). The lived experience of parental suicide bereavement for emerging adults (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/5040