A trainee psychotherapist’s heuristic exploration of losing a mother to suicide

ABSTRACT

Suicide bereavement is a newly developing field of research in the UK, yet over 6,600 people take their own lives here every year. This heuristic inquiry aims to explore the lived experiences of trainee psychotherapists bereaved by maternal suicide. It examines the lived experiences of the researcher and two participants, with data collected through interviews, dreams and journalling. The findings revealed five themes: 1) It’s not just about the suicide, 2) The pain continues – attachment, abandonment and fear, 3) Left with all the unprocessed feelings – “the shit”, 4) Trigger after trigger – complicated experiences of psychotherapy training, 5) A catastrophic loss that no one “gets”. Implications for the counselling and psychotherapy profession are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Suicide bereavement
• heuristic inquiry
• suicide survivor
• counselling training
• bereavement
• trainee experience

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Val Thomas for her support throughout my dissertation and for her feedback on this paper. I want to thank my research participants for generously sharing their experiences with me. Finally, I am grateful to my family for consenting to the publication of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kelly Stewart is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and a psychotherapist.

Dr. Val Thomas is a senior counsellor, psychotherapist and supervisor in private practice, writer and trainer at the Minster Centre, UK.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.