This study aimed to investigate the experiences of fellow patients following the suicide of a group member. Data were collected via a semi-structured interview conducted in a focus group, which comprised of eight patients attending therapy program in the Day hospital for early intervention. Their patients´ reactions reflected the process of mourning and concern for each other and for their own well-being. They were satisfied with the post-suicide actions of the therapy team, which instilled in them a sense of community and support, and some of them even showed signs of post-traumatic growth. We hope that these experiences may serve as a foundation for the development of more effective therapeutic strategies to lessen the trauma of suicide in group therapy.

While (Cochrane-oriented) evidence based medicine favours RCTs and RCT-based meta-analyses, psychiatry also highlights the values of individualised medicine, complexity sciences and medical epistemology. In a similar way, meta-theoretical considerations put RCTs into perspective: (i) randomisation does not necessarily generate analogous samples, (ii) differences between normal and actual distributions impact on statistical outcomes, (iii) Likert scales may not produce interval data, which are prerequisite for statistical processing, (iv) medical data may possess dynamic characteristics, and (v) standardised research designs have to be revisited from a correspondence-theoretical point of view. To overcome typical flaws, statistical correction, reliable ways of sample splitting and dynamic simulation models are in the ascendant.