Year: 2008 Source: Illness, Crisis and Loss, v.16, no.4, (2008), p.285-304 SIEC No: 20090233

With participant observations from peer-facilitated suicide survivor support group meetings, collected over a 4-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 support groups. Group facilitators can provide more clarity & direction to survivors with Shulman’s principles, better helping survivors to navigate the bewildering course of healing after suicide loss. Ways to more widely distribute group facilitation knowledge are suggested. (32 refs.)