Luto materno pelo jovem perpetrador: sobrevivendo à morte violenta do filho

Abstract

The early death of young people aged 15 to 29 by homicide has been a growing phenomenon in Brazil since 1980. Of every three fatal victims of firearms, two are young and male. Between 2016 and 2017, Brazil had an increase of 6.7% in the youth homicide rate, a record rate in the last ten years. The outskirts of big cities are where most homicides take place. In these places, the death of young people is part of a reality that expands with the intensification of drug trafficking, their entry into the world of crime and, as a consequence, their premature death. Death by homicide has a significant impact on the lives of family and friends, as feelings of anger and guilt interfere with the process of mourning that tends to become complicated. For the mother, the death of a child is experienced as the worst type of loss, because it breaks intense and singular affective bonds. But when this loss comes with the specificity of the death of a perpetrating child, the losses add up: the child's, his image, his identity as someone other than the mother of a perpetrator, or the loss of the fundamental belief that life is governed by logic, there is a great tendency for this grief to evolve into a complicated grief. The fact that homicides are today one of the main causes of death in Brazil brings to light the relevance of the discussion about maternal mourning due to violent death. The aim of this research was to understand maternal mourning for the young perpetrator who was killed violently. A case study was conducted, using the reflective interview, with a mother whose child - the perpetrator - was violently killed. Content analysis was used, as obtained in the interview. The results indicate that the presence of feelings such as anger and guilt are factors that prevent the reframing of the bereavement process with risk for complicated bereavement