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Attachment, loss, and complicated grief
Author(s) -
Shear Katherine,
Shair Harry
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.20091
Subject(s) - grief , psychology , traumatic grief , disenfranchised grief , depression (economics) , psychotherapist , developmental psychology , psychoanalysis , economics , macroeconomics
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. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 47: 253–267, 2005.