Social Work Commons^™

Making Meaning Of Being Bereaved By Suicide: An Everyday Experience, Colleen Carlon

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This autoethnography explores the experience of societal meanings of suicide from the perspective of people bereaved by suicide. The research focuses on three autoethnographic stories of everyday experiences in which personal meaning making and societal meanings of suicide intersect in contemporary Australian settings. Personal perspectives are positioned alongside broader discussions of suicide taboo to consider the implications for agency and meaning making. Key differences between conventional notions of stigma and structural stigma, and ways in which suicide taboo influences meaning making for people bereaved by suicide are explored. The paper proposes a recasting of action previously framed as internalised stigma …