ABSTRACT
The question whether and in what manner the mode of death changes the nature of the bereavement experience has a long and sometimes contested history in thanatology, including in the author's area of interest, which is survivorship after the loss of a loved one to suicide. This chapter briefly summarizes the research literature that bears on the subject of differences between bereavement after suicide and after other modes of death. It offers an abbreviated summary of the author's recent thinking about how they might resolve the many contradictory findings in the empirical literature on this matter. The chapter presents a case example of the suicide of a young adult and some of the clinical work done by the first author with the deceased’s father and his family. Then the chapter illustrates how the research literature can inform our understanding of the experience of losing a child to suicide and the clinical work that flows from that understanding.
