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Psychosocial aspects of parental response patterns to the death of a child by Homicide
Author(s) -
Rinear Eileen E.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of traumatic stress
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.259
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1573-6598
pISSN - 0894-9867
DOI - 10.1002/jts.2490010304
Subject(s) - homicide , psychosocial , psychology , warrant , injury prevention , suicide prevention , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , psychiatry , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , medicine , medical emergency , financial economics , economics
Homicide is a major cause of mortality in contemporary American society, affecting all age groups, but showing a special predilection for members of the adolescent and young adult populations. Surviving parents of murder victims face a complex bereavement which derives not only from the sudden and traumatic nature of their child's death but also from the shattering of their own previously held personal assumptions about themselves and the world. In an effort to understand better the unique stresses and psychological processes which accompany the death of a child by homicide, a survey of more than 200 parents of murdered children was conducted, which forms the central framework upon which the ideas set forth in this paper are based. Emphasis is placed primarily upon the legitimization of such bereft individuals as covictims of these homicide crimes; the occurrence of symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (APA, 1980) with sufficient frequency and duration to warrant its chronic subtype diagnosis, the presence of disordered variants of mourning deriving from the coexistence of such traumatic stress symptomatology, and the impact that the destruction of previously held personal beliefs about oneself and the world has upon postmurder reactions and subsequent adjustment.