A Qualitative Research Of Grief Reactions And Peer Relationship Development Of Adolescents To Friends’ Death

Experiencing a friend’s death in adolescence may cause a special loss of the youth, specially for the development of their peer relationship. This study is to explore the characteristics of the grief reactions of adolescents to friends’ death and the impact on the development of peer relations, and based on this to enhance the community’s attention to this special group, so as to provide a reference for the future effective psychological intervention.A qualitative study with in-depth interview was applied in this study. Thirteen college students(8 male; 5 female) aged who experienced the death of friends in adolescence participated in the study by means of an open recruitment in a college.Mean age of participants is 20(SD=3). The study designed a semi-structured interview outline for the respondents, and through the in-depth interviews to understand their psychological experience and feelings after the friends’ death, and the development and change process of their peer relationship. The results are as follows:(1) The common grief reactions of respondents to a friend’s death in adolescence mainly includes five aspects: emotional reactions are shocked, sad, regret, anger and fear; cognitive reactions are denial, disbelieving and thinking about life and death;behavioral reactions are avoidance, seeking support and caring for the dead loved ones; physiological reaction is crying; and complex reactions.(2) There are some special characteristics of the grief reactions of respondents to friends’ death repeatedly in adolescence which is reflected in the following aspects:leges got weakened, having a nightmare, thinking god is not fair, questioning their own existence, having a mental shadow over friend’s role, revolting against the school,seeking stimulating and venting, becoming violent, changing relationships, reducing social activities and working harder.(3) The grief and the peer relationship development of respondents to single friends’ death in adolescence has the following four characteristics: Adolescents deal with grief in a number of support systems. They avoid talking about the dead people.The circle of friends which losts their friends together is very depressed. Excessive grief caused the separation of friends. If friends are hard, they will try their best to help. They are afraid of friends get sick and worry about friends’ safety.(4) The grief and the peer relationship development of respondents to friends’ death repeatedly in adolescence has the following four characteristics: Adolescents deal with grief from relying on multi support system to only rely on peers. The circle of friends which losts their friends together change from "direct dissolution" to "first gathering and then dissolving". The new peer relationship change from "it is difficult to establish it" to "we tried to establish it but we cannot meet a friend we could talk to". The heterosexual relationship change from “the relationship is volatility ” to “it is hard to establish intimate relationship”.The characteristics of the grief reactions of respondents to a friend’s death in adolescence have universality and show unique characteristics, and are influenced by the social development stage of adolescents. The peer relationship plays an important role in adolescents grief supporting system, and is affected by the grief.