Livet är bra, jag kan bara inte sova - En kvalitativ studie om skolkuratorers arbete med suicidnära ungdomar

Sammanfattning: Sweden is considered a privileged country to live in and the total suicide rate has decreased in recent years. Suicide among adolescents has, however, increased. Statistics show the highest rate of suicides among adolescents in Sweden in twenty-five years, which is significantly higher than the suicide rate among young people in other Western European countries. Research shows that girls are more likely to commit suicide attempts compared to boys, who commit suicide twice as much. Studies also indicate that girls are more inclined to talk about their well-being and contact professionals for help, compared to boys. The purpose with this thesis was to find out how school counselors work with adolescents with suicidal thoughts and whether they use different methods when working with boys and girls. We also wanted to find out if the notion of gender has an impact on the counselors work. We conducted semistructured interviews with seven school counselors, working in high-schools in different parts of Skåne. The analysis of data was guided by gender theory and the concept norms. The analysis showed that most school counselors assumed that girls are more likely to talk about their problems and also more advanced in terms of expression compared to boys. The curators use different expressions for boys and girls behavior, for example, girls are described as passive and boys as active. Most respondents state that they do not work differently with boys and girls and that they don’t intend to work differently. In summary, the school counselors thinks that it is important for adolescents with suicide thoughts to talk about their feelings and that for them as professionals, is important to be aware of the signs of mental illness in young people.