ABSTRACT
When a loved one dies through suicide, a distressing aftermath may extend throughout the entire immediate and extended family and their work-related and social organizations. The death of a family member through suicide may provoke shock, trauma, and a range of intense grief responses that change irrevocably the family’s assumptive world (Janoff-Bullman, 1992). These beliefs and ideas about “how life should be” are challenged, reorganized, and forever altered through the family’s relational, communicative, and meaning-making processes (Kaslow & Gilman, 2004; Sands, Jordan, & Nei-meyer, 2011). For those bereaved by suicide, unlike other causes of death, the deceased seemingly made a decision to die rather than remain with loved ones. The volitional intent of the family member who chooses suicide violates on many levels relational bonds of care and trust, and meaning-making efforts are fraught with difficulties that complicate adaptive grieving (Neimeyer & Sands, 2011; Sands et al., 2011). Death, a conceptually difficult topic, becomes even more inexplicable.
