Research on the experience of continuing bonds between the bereaved and their deceased siblings who passed away in the survivors' adolescence

Background: The research stems from the researcher’s experience of being an invisible griever in the family and society during adolescence. Such experience is similar to the bereaved whose sibling died in adolescence. Importance: There is insufficient research on adolescent sibling bereavement and sibling continuing bonds in Taiwan. Objectives: This research is to explore the process of constructing the continuing bonds between the bereaved and the deceased siblings who passed away in the survivors’ adolescence and the style, connotation, role and function of the sibling continuing bonds. Method: Narrative inquiry and in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted using narrative techniques and intersubjective attitude to create a space for life stories, to engage in thick description of continuing bonds, to re-construct self-identity, to integrate the sibling-loss experience, and even to change lives essentially for the interviewer, researcher and readers. Findings: The culture of Confucianism in Taiwan, with it interpersonal rules, squeezes the space for the adolescent bereaved siblings’ bereavement and turns them into the henchmen and instrumental otherness in Taiwan’s rituals and customs. Sibling continuing bonds (SCB) and the life narration of SCB and sibling loss has become the way and power for the bereaved sibling transformation, even though the sibling bereavement still exists in the living siblings’ lives. The deceased siblings come in to part of the bereaved siblings’ self. As a result, severing continuing bonds is impossible. The researcher realized that she had idealized the grief healing as being without any grief. Researcher’s Reflection: The adolescent sibling bereavement is the product and the sum of multi-system interactions. The self-identity of the bereaved siblings are shattered by the mainstream discourse and the frame of Taiwanese culture. Thus, reconstructing the subjectivity of the bereaved sibling is paramount. The researcher’s second aunt died from cancer as the thesis was about to be finished. The loss resurrected the memory of the death of the forth aunt, creating a chance to discuss the experience and bereavement with two cousins who are the forth aunt’s daughters. All the experiences in the research process shocked and facilitated the researchers’ wakefulness. The researcher eventually determined to carry the grief and the bereavement in her course of life.