Engaging in ritual after client suicide: the critical importance of linking objects for therapists

Abstract

Within the counselling field it has long been known that engaging in ritual after the loss of a significant other has positive therapeutic benefits for the mourner. In contrast, little is understood about therapists' experiences of ritual in response to their clients' deaths by suicide. Based on interviews with six therapists whose clients had died by this means, this article explores the place of ritual in these individuals' lives. Little evidence was found to suggest that the need for therapists to engage in ritual, post-client suicide, was recognised, supported or met, by others. As a result, the grief of these therapists became disenfranchised, transforming them into 'forgotten mourners' and forcing them to engage in 'peripheral' rituals using linking objects. It is hoped that this article, by highlighting the critical importance of ritual for therapists mourning the loss of a client by suicide, will help to ameliorate the current void in the literature relating to this issue.