"Being an adolescent suicide survivor"

Revision with unchanged content. Suicide is a tragic act. The real victims of the tragedy are the individuals who are left behind to cope with the trauma of loosing a significant other. They often struggle with unanswerable questions, self-blaming, stigmatisation and confusion. Very little is known regarding the qualitative aspects of adolescent suicide survivors' emotional experiences, meaning-making and coping behaviour. This book describes a study of the lived experiences of female late adolescent suicide survivors. It primarily uses a psychological-phenomenological approach. Data collection consisted of collage-facilitated face-to-face phenomenological interviews. The data were analysed according to Giorgi's phenomenological method. The analysis revealed three peri-suicide experience clusters ("Awareness of victim's suicide-associated behaviour directly prior to the suicide", "Immediate reactions on becoming aware of the suicide" and "Reactions in the days following the suicide") and three postsuicide experience clusters ("Falling apart", "Being shattered" and "Putting the pieces back together").