What is survivor's guilt? How does it manifest itself?

Survivor's guilt is rather self explanatory.

It manifests in a person or persons whom have survived an accident of some sort. They convince themselves that they were not nearly as "good" or "worthy" as the people who died.

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When you're in a life or death situation and one person dies and another lives, the survivor frequently feels guily about still being alive. It can cause the person to become depressed and in extreme cases, can even lead to thoughts of suicide. It's especially true if it's a sibling. Depending on the way the family treats them, they can begin to feel that they wish it had been you that died. It probably isnt true, but for the survivor, it still seems likely. This happened in my family when one brother was killed in the WTC and the other brother was basically shut out of family life. All of the attention was paid to the dead brother. It's taken almost 6 years to resolve this. It's not an easy place to be.

When a person is in a hostage situation or a situation in which the people around them are killed yet they are spared, they get a depression feeling, like it should have been me or it makes them feel that the other people who died were better than them for dying. The reason this happens is because of a person's inability to talk themself through it.

After an accident or event in which somebody or a group of people die, any survivors in the grieving process either blames themselves for the accident or believe that they themself should have died and someone else should have lived.

It is part of the despair stage of the coping process: denial- anger- bargaining- despair- acceptance. (If i remember correctly.)

It's a form of depression.