Trauernden Jugendlichen zuhoren

Conversations with young people are challenging. In particular, employees of counseling centers complain that young people are more difficult to interest in their offers than children. After an introduction to the psychological development of young people whose parents have died, the authors provide insights into their experiences. Based on interviews, the presented innovative approach of conversation analysis focuses on how people talk to each other, not like content analysis or biographical approaches that deal with the what of conversations. The psychotherapist Miriam Haagen and the linguist Heike Knerich train grieving young people to observe interactive conversation structuring using exemplary verbatim statements and derive suggestions for counseling practice from this. It becomes clear how profitable this approach is for the support work with young people.