Losing a Parent to Suicide: Using Lived Experiences to Inform Bereavement Counseling

The suicide of a parent has life-long consequences; few more traumatic scenarios exist, and counselors often struggle for ways to help clients deal with its effects. Few understand the pain and life-altering effects of these tragedies better than children who have experienced the suicide of a parent. Despite this, there are few texts that incorporate and evaluate the first-person accounts of grief following a suicide while advancing a method for helping. Losing a Parent to Suicide analyzes stories of parent suicides and explores the grief and coping processes that follow, discovering the strategies, methods and modes of therapy that have empowered grieving individuals and helped them rebuild their lives.