The Healing Alliance: How Families Use Social Support after a Suicide

Abstract

This article is based on a study that investigated family responses to suicide using a qualitative methodology. The intent of the study was to expand our understanding of family responses to suicide by asking the question, “What changes do families experience after a suicide?” One aspect of the data revealed how families use social support to integrate the death into its history. It was found that healing alliances created within and outside the family sustained its members as they engaged in the painful process of personal re-definition and family transformation.