Bereavement is a highly disruptive experience that is usually followed by a painful but time-limited period of acute grief. An unfortunate minority of individuals experience prolonged and impairing complicated grief, an identifiable syndrome that differs from usual grief, major depression, and other DSM IV diagnostic entities. Underlying processes guiding symptoms are not well understood for either usual or complicated grief. We propose a provisional model of bereavement, guided by Myron Hofer's question "What exactly is lost when a loved one dies?" We integrate insights about biobehavioral regulation from Hofer's animal studies of infant separation, research on adult human attachment, and new ideas from bereavement research. In this model, death of an attachment figure produces a state of traumatic loss and symptoms of acute grief. These symptoms usually resolve following revision of the internalized representation of the deceased to incorporate the reality of the death. Failure to accomplish this integration results in the syndrome of complicated grief.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.