This study sought to determine if depression is an inevitable outcome of childhood bereavement experiences, as the Freudians believed, or if children can experience healthy mourning, as Bowlby predicted. In an application of Q methodology, 43 adults parentally bereaved as children sorted statements about childhood bereavement experiences and outcomes in adulthood. Debriefing interviews followed. Four distinct types of experience emerged through factor analysis: appreciation, frustration, enmeshment, and ambivalence. Depression was not found to be an inevitable outcome, and Bowlby's prediction that certain positive family factors can influence a child toward healthy mourning during childhood were corroborated. Salient factors contributing to healthy childhood mourning included positive relationships between the child and both parents, ample emotional and psychological support from the surviving parent, and open and honest communication with the child about the death and its impact on the family.

The research question addressed was: To what extent did the interactions of childhood sibling subsystems after a parent died facilitate healthy grieving in families where the surviving parent was emotionally unavailable to the children? Utilizing Q methodology, the researcher studied two quartets of adult sisters who, when 3–10 years old, had experienced the deaths of their fathers and the emotional absence of their mothers. Results included a variety of sibling interactions that demonstrated the potential for siblings to contribute to each other's healthy grieving, although the stable presence of a supportive adult was important. Implications for helping professionals included encouragement to actively nurture sibling subsystems by teaching and coaching children how to facilitate each other's grief work in age appropriate ways, and to avoid focusing too closely on the pain of the emotionally unavailable surviving parent to the neglect of children's individual needs and care-giving capacities.

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