Surviving After Suicide Loss: The Healing Potential of Suicide Survivor Support Groups

Abstract

With participant observations from peer-facilitated suicide survivor support group meetings, collected over a four-year period, this article applies Shulman's dynamics of mutual aid theory to explain how survivors' healing is facilitated by support group participation. Shulman's principles provide guidance on how survivors help and empower each other to deal with their grief in survivor support groups. Group facilitators can provide more clarity and direction to survivors with Shulman's principles, better helping survivors to navigate the bewildering course of healing after suicide loss. We also suggest ways group facilitation knowledge—an essential resource for enhancing healing—can be more widely distributed.