Defending Dignity and the Role of Social Responses: A Response-Based Approach to Suicide Bereavement
Defending Dignity and the Role of Social Responses: A Response-Based Approach to Suicide Bereavement
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Issue Date
2025-05
Authors
O'Connor, Rebecca
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Abstract
This capstone outlines how using response-based practice can inform therapeutic work with people affected by suicide bereavement. Despite increased awareness of mental health, therapeutic models for suicide loss tend to overlook the relational and social contexts surrounding grief. In contrast, response-based therapy emphasizes dignity, safety, and the social responses people receive by framing choices and behaviors as forms of resistance to harm rather than evidence of dysfunction. This approach opens possibilities for a non-pathologizing, context-aware framework that is allied with survivors' pre-existing capacity and lived realities.
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Keywords
response-based practice , suicide bereavement , social responses , mental health