A Narrative Approach to the Study of the Loss Experience of an Adolescence Witnessing His Mother Murdered by His Father
Abstract Witnessing the murder of mother by father, and the lost of both parents at the same time is definitely a shock with life-long complications of a child. The trauma is so profound that the grief and coping following such a tragedy is assumed to be unusual. However, few research has ever shed light on such an issue world-wide and especially in Taiwan. In this study, by way of a narrative approach, the subjective experience of such an adolescent is investigated. Data was collected through narrative interview the stories told my the research participant (A-Der). The "holistic--content" and " categorical-- content" perspectives were used to analyze the data. The results of this study showed that (a) due to the inflicted death of parents at the same date, it seemed that A-Der lost cognitive reference which lead to numerous mistakes during his later development; (b) according to " categorical--content" analyses, the major coping strategy was avoidance, which is assumed to be resulted from the lack of cognitive references. Together, identity stagament and crises are the major characteristics of his teenage development; (c) together, up-rooted with no solid cognitive reference characterize his avoidant coping and serial failures in life. The findings suggested that A-Der might be in desperate need of guidance for his life. However, the stigma of murder of parents and by parents at the same time, prevented A-Der and people around from offering sufficient guidance. Not willing to talk about the tragedy implicated the shortage of guidance both asked and provided. The Erickson s "identity theory" seems relevant to the present findings. In the future, the effectiveness of providing guidance to help similar clients could be a major hypothesis to be bear in mind for both researchers and counselors. Key words Father kills mother Loss BereavementNarrative Adolescence Homicide survivor
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
/ 11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
/ / / 26
27
--- (A Dual Process Model of Coping With LossPathways) () () () () ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) 2-5. Stroebe(2001) 28
29
30
31
32
33
34 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6 8. 7
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114