Working with adult homicide survivors, part II: helping family members cope with murder.

TOPIC

The process of coping with the murder of a loved one and ways in which therapists may assist homicide survivors in the aftermath.

PURPOSES

To identify coping strategies used by homicide survivors, describe variables that may affect the grieving process, discuss treatment strategies related to posttraumatic stress and complicated mourning within the framework of outcome-oriented nursing process, and explore the concept of posttraumatic growth.

SOURCES

Review of the literature and the author's own clinical work.

CONCLUSIONS

Coping with the aftermath of murder is a difficult and long-lasting process. While no one method or strategy for assisting homicide survivors works for everyone, a combination of therapeutic approaches-including crisis intervention, individual, family, and group therapy, peer support groups, pharmacological-that may assist the survivor in working through the trauma and grief of such a violent loss.