Continuing Bonds and Reconstructing Meaning: Mitigating Complications in Bereavement

Abstract

Drawing on attachment theory and constructivist conceptualizations of bereavement, the authors assessed the relation between continuing bonds coping and meaning reconstruction following the death of a loved one and complicated grief symptomatology. Five hundred six young adults in the first two years of bereavement from a variety of losses completed the Inventory of Complicated Grief along with measures of the strength of their ongoing attachment to the deceased and their capacity to make sense of the loss, find benefit in the experience, and reconstruct a progressive sense of identity following the death. Several variables concerning the survivor, his or her relationship to the deceased, and the nature of the death functioned as risk factors for heightened distress, but their role was generally moderated by meaning-making, often to the point of non-significance. In contrast, higher levels of benefit-finding and positive identity change were associated with lower levels of bereavement complication. Finally, an interaction emerged between sense-making and ongoing attachment to the deceased, suggesting that strong continuing bonds predicted greater levels of traumatic and especially separation distress, but only when the survivor was unable to make sense of the loss in personal, practical, existential, or spiritual terms.

Positive Outcomes Following Bereavement: Paths to Posttraumatic Growth

“…Continued connections to the deceased can, for some persons, encourage increased spirituality or a desire to maintain spiritual beliefs (Cait, 2004;Sormanti & August, 1997); with the deepening of spirituality representing spiritual growth. A caveat, however, is that the continued connection with the deceased may or may not be generally adaptive (Neimeyer, Baldwin, & Gillies, 2006;Parker, 2005;Stroebe & Schut, 2005).…”

Complicated Grief in the Aftermath of Homicide: Spiritual Crisis and Distress in an African American Sample

“…18, 138). Specifically, inclusion of T1 outcome scores was imperative to our repeated-measures, within-subjects design; inclusion of Contact was based on prior research showing that pre-death levels of contact between bereaved individuals and their deceased loved one specifically predicted CG [28]; [61]; and, TSL was included because of the relatively great variation between participants in terms of post-loss duration. Table 1 summarizes the descriptive statistics for the background variables, religious coping, and bereavement distress measures used in this study.…”

Prolonged grief symptomatology following violent loss: the mediating role of meaning

“…For example, previous studies have suggested that risk factors for PGD, including that of violent loss, increase symptoms of PGD by hindering meaning making such that the bereft are unable to ‘make sense’ of the death or its aftermath (Milman, Neimeyer, Fitzpatrick, MacKinnon, Muis, & Cohen, under review; Currier, Holland, Coleman, & Neimeyer, 2007; Lichtenthal, Neimeyer, Currier, Roberts, & Jordan, 2013; Neimeyer, Baldwin, & Gillies, 2006; Rozalski, Holland, & Neimeyer, 2017). Building on this research, this study examines which themes of meaning are disrupted specifically following violent loss with the aim of informing preventive interventions that facilitate meaning making in a manner that mitigates symptoms of PGD among the violently bereft.…”