Traumatic Loss and Developmental Interruption in Adolescence: An Integrative Approach

Abstract

Loss of a sibling in mid-adolescence profoundly interrupts the progressive movement along a developmental path. The impact of a sibling's suicide for a first-generation Asian-American adolescent will be examined with respect to identity formation, and how cultural values and beliefs influenced clinical process. The author contends that an integrative treatment model was necessary for the work of mourning and for facilitating progression from one stage of adolescence to the next. This framework blended a psychoanalytic/developmental approach with a neuropsychological/somatic understanding of the synergistic relationship between mind and body. The clinical process utilized co-construction of experience (Stolorow & Atwood, 1992) and a multiple self-states model of the mind (Bromberg, 1998).