Evaluating and Treating Adolescent Suicide Attempters

Evaluating and Treating Adolescent Suicide Attempters

From Research to Practice
Practical Resources for the Mental Health Professional
2003, Pages 161-189
Evaluating and Treating Adolescent Suicide Attempters

Chapter 8 - Social Factors: Family Functioning

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Publisher Summary

This chapter explores the social factors such as family functioning in the lives of adolescents. Family issues play a central role in many adolescent suicide attempts. Prolonged and progressive family disruptions, inadequate family relationships, and ineffective parent–child relationships may result in adolescent suicidal behavior. Multigenerational familial difficulties, such as isolation, abandonment, long-lasting feuds, emotional cutoffs, violence, and abuse, may also result in an adolescent's suicidal behavior. Family influences on the suicidal behavior of adolescents have therefore been investigated from multiple conceptual bases including familial psychopathology, such as a family history of suicidal behavior, family composition, family histories of abuse, and family conflict. Adaptive factors including perceived support, communication, and problem solving have also been studied. Families may have strengths in a variety of areas, such as conflict resolution, communication, parental relationships, or extended family support. Highlighting these areas can be healing and normalizing for the family and set the stage for the difficult work of addressing dysfunctional aspects of the family system. Findings from studies in these areas of family functioning conducted in the past decade are summarized in this chapter.

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