Gender Differences in Parental Coping Following their Child's Death

The impact of the deaths of 19 children from malignancy on subsequent patterns of maternal and paternal coping styles was evaluated in a retrospective study of Dutch parents. The parents had been bereaved on average for 19 months. Parental coping was measured by the Utrecht Coping List which has comparable male and female norm groups. Coping styles differed significantly between the bereaved parents and their respective norm groups, particularly for parents bereaved for 18 months or less. The impact of the loss of a child, in terms of their parents' capacity to cope with everyday problems and events, would appear to affect mothers and fathers rather differently. But fathers and mothers who had been bereaved for more than 18 months were both closer to their comparable coping style norm groups than those bereaved for less than that time.     

Psychological Consequences of Pregnancy Loss and Infant Death in a Sample of Bereaved Parents

This study aimed to explore a broad range of psychological reactions to trauma in a sample of bereaved parents in order to assess whether the traumatic framework is adequate for describing the entire range of emotional reactions to infant death. A sample of bereaved parents (N = 455) who lost their child through perinatal or postnatal loss were compared to a control group of parents (N = 110) who gave birth to a healthy child. Multivariate regression analysis clearly demonstrated that bereaved parents scored significantly higher on the Depression, Anxiety, Dissociation, Sleep Disturbances, Somatization, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Aggression subscales of the Trauma Symptom Checklist. Consistent with previous studies, the results showed that for up to 5 years postloss bereaved parents expressed elevated levels of trauma-specific and psychological outcomes, in particular interpersonal sensitivity and aggression.     

The use of religion in coping with grief among bereaved Malay Muslim parents

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of religion on bereaved parents after the death of a child. Literature had attempted to understand how religiosity may influence parental grief both in positive and negative ways. However, this area is scarcely explored in the Malaysian context. This qualitative study involved 11 bereaved parents who lost their children due to accidents (n?=?9) and homicide (n?=?2). Open-ended questions that focused on the importance, activities, and role of religion in the grieving process among Malay parents were asked. According to the thematic analysis, some of the main themes found were that the bereaved parents described religion as a beneficial mechanism in helping them to adapt with their losses through various responses that indicated the perception that religion as a guidance. However, other than the positive impact, religiosity can also lead the bereaved parents to experience negative effects of using religion as a coping strategy. The influence of culture is prevalent in the current study as the theme of mystical belief and paranormal experiences were also reported. This study provides some professional implication from the possible use of religion in intervention.     

Network and mutual support for parents bereaved following the violent deaths of their 12- to 28-year-old children: A longitudinal,prospective analysis

Abstract

Social support provided by bereaved parents' networks was examined in this study. Seven dimensions of support were assessed over time. Of special interest to the investigators were the types and frequency of posttreatment contacts among bereaved parents who participated in an experimental support program. The study compared those who reported high versus low social support and high versus low numbers of network confidants on selected outcome and coping variables. The authors recruited a community-based sample of 171 bereaved mothers and 90 bereaved fathers whose 12- to 28-year-old children had died by accident, suicide, or homicide 4 months previously. Parents were randomly assigned to a 12-week bereavement program or control group. It was expected that intervention group parents would report more social network in involvement and greater satisfaction with support received than control group parents. This hypothesis was only partially supported. Only 20% of the parents who participated in the bereavement program remained in contact after the experimental program ended. Finally, significant differences detected between parents who reported high and low support were minimal and not sustained over time. The number of network confidants did not significantly affect the outcomes examined. However, in general, those with more confidants reported lower symptoms. Additional studies are needed to address these complex issues.     

Long-term effects of the death of a child on parents' adjustment in midlife.

The death of a child is a traumatic event that can have long-term effects on the lives of parents. This study examined bereaved parents of deceased children (infancy to age 34) and comparison parents with similar backgrounds (n = 428 per group) identified in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. An average of 18.05 years following the death, when parents were age 53, bereaved parents reported more depressive symptoms, poorer well-being, and more health problems and were more likely to have experienced a depressive episode and marital disruption than were comparison parents. Recovery from grief was associated with having a sense of life purpose and having additional children but was unrelated to the cause of death or the amount of time since the death. The results point to the need for detection and intervention to help those parents who are experiencing lasting grief.     

When a child dies: the sociobiology of bereavement

According to modern evolutionary theory, the fitness of individuals consists of both their personal reproductive success and the reproductive success of those with whom they share genes in common. It follows that one of the most biologically costly events possible is the death of a child. This study investigated the grief intensity of bereaved parents and their immediate families using ratings made by 263 bereaved parents. Predictions were derived from sociobiological tenets relating to parental investment, paternal uncertainty, and the propagation potential of both parents and children. Consequently, it was found that mothers grieved more than fathers, healthy children were grieved for more than unhealthy children; male children were grieved for more than female children; health of child and sex of child interacted such that the pattern of grief intensity obtained was healthy male greater than healthy female = unhealthy female = unhealthy male; similar children were grieved for more than dissimilar children; maternal grandmothers grieved more than either maternal grandfathers or paternal grandmothers, who in turn grieved more than paternal grandfathers; and mothers' siblings grieved more than fathers' siblings.     

From Demonization to Identification: How Parents Who Lost Children in Terrorist Attacks Perceive the Attacker

The aim of this article is to examine how bereaved parents who lost children in terrorist attacks in Israel perceive the terrorist attack perpetrators. Forty bereaved parents were interviewed using a semistructured in-depth interview. The content analysis revealed a typology of reactions to the Arab attackers that included perceiving them as objects of anger, hate, and revenge; as demons; as negligible; and as people with whom they could identify. The way bereaved parents perceive the Arab attackers serves as a coping resource. Follow-up research to examine the efficacy of the different types of reactions towards attackers would contribute to gaining a deeper understanding of the coping process that bereaved parents experience.     

Exploring Characteristics of Children Presenting to Counseling for Grief and Loss

To date, researchers exploring childhood bereavement have largely relied on unstandardized assessment instruments and/or have independently evaluated specific constructs rather than factoring in the dimensionality of loss. The purpose of this study was to utilize psychometrically established instruments to examine the multivariate shared relationship between characteristics of bereaved children referred for counseling--their ages, genders, ethnicities, types of loss, and life stressors—and their behavioral manifestations as well as the relationship between these characteristics and levels of parent-child relational stress. Utilizing archival clinical files, we examined these characteristics from bereaved children (N?=?98) whose parents sought counseling services from two university-based counseling clinics. Two canonical correlational analyses (CCA) were conducted to examine the following: (1) relationship between characteristics of bereaved children and their subsequent behavioral manifestations, (2) relationship between characteristics of bereaved children and levels of parent-child relational stress. Correlational findings from this study provided insight into bereaved children’s manifestations of loss and levels of parent-child relational stress as contingent upon these specific characteristics. Specifically, results indicated a strong relationship between age and bereaved children’s behavioral manifestations. This finding reinforced the importance for clinicians to understand developmental implications when working with bereaved children. Furthermore, caregivers who reported minimal overall external stressors also reported less parent-child relational interference. This finding further emphasizes the importance for caregivers to maintain utmost stability for bereaved children.     

Long-term effects of losing a spouse or child in a motor vehicle crash

In this article we examine the long-term effects of the sudden, unexpected loss of a spouse or child. In the spouse study, interviews were conducted with 39 individuals who had lost a spouse in a motor vehicle crash 4 to 7 years ago and with 39 matched controls. In the parent study, interviews were conducted with 41 parents who had lost a child in a crash and with 41 matched controls. Control respondents were matched to bereaved respondents case-by-case on the basis of sex, age, income, education, and number and ages of children. Significant differences between bereaved spouses and controls were revealed on several indicators of general functioning, including depression and other psychiatric symptoms, social functioning, psychological well-being, reactivity to good events, and future worries and concerns. For the most part, these differences persisted when variables such as present family income and present marital status were statistically controlled. Comparisons between bereaved and control parents also revealed significant differences on some measures of general functioning (especially depression), but these were not as pervasive as the differences obtained in the spouse study. Responses to questions about current thoughts and feelings suggest that the deceased continued to occupy the thoughts and conversations of bereaved spouses and parents. Moreover, a large percentage of respondents (from 30% to 85%, depending on the question), continued to ruminate about the accident or what might have been done to prevent it, and they appeared to be unable to accept, resolve, or find any meaning in the loss. Taken together, the data provide little support for traditional notions of recovery from the sudden, unexpected loss of a spouse or child.     

Encountering the Body at the Site of the Suicide: A Population‐Based Survey in Sweden

Encountering the body of a child who died by suicide at the site of death is believed to be especially harmful for bereaved parents. We investigated the association between encountering the body at the site of the suicide and psychological distress in 666 suicide‐bereaved parents. Parents who had encountered their child's body at the site of the suicide (n = 147) did not have a higher risk of nightmares (relative risk [RR] 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.67–1.35), intrusive memories (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.84–1.13), avoidance of thoughts (RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.74–1.27), avoidance of places or things (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.66–1.25), anxiety (RR 0.93, 95% CI 0.64–1.33), or depression (RR 0.94, 95% CI 0.63–1.42) compared with parents who had not encountered the body (n = 512). Our results suggest that losing a child by suicide is sufficiently disastrous by itself to elicit posttraumatic responses or psychiatric morbidity whether or not the parent has encountered the deceased child at the site of death.     

The Emotional Reengineering of Loss: On the Grief-Anger-Social Action Continuum

This article deals with the role of bereaved parents' anger as a motivating force for political and public activism. After reviewing the place of anger in the experience of processing loss and bereavement and presenting anger as a factor that leads to public initiative, the article deals with the place that anger occupies in the bereaved sector of Israeli society. The claim is made that Israeli society has changed since its early years, when "the national management of emotions" did not allow anger to be present in the public discourse of bereaved parents, to the current era in which anger is an inseparable part of Israeli bereavement discourse. The following section of the article includes an interpretive analysis of the place of anger among the research subjects, bereaved parents who later became public and political entrepreneurs. All of the research subjects lost a son in one of three circumstances that are part of the Israeli security agenda: operational accidents, terrorist attacks, and IDF combat in Lebanon. Finally, the study attempts to answer how anger structures both public and private bereavement in Israel, shaping the bereaved parents as instant celebrities.     

Parental coping with their child's death

The impact of the death of 19 children form malignancy on subsequent patterns of parental coping was evaluated in a retrospective study of 33 Dutch parents, who had been bereaved for 19 months on average. Parents who had lost older children were compared with those who had lost younger ones on the Utrecht Coping List, which has been compared with a Dutch norm group. Coping styles of the bereaved parents differed significantly from those of the norm group. These differences were associated with the poorer mental health of the bereaved group as a whole. Parents of older children coped less well than those of younger ones.     

“We Hardly Ever Talk about It”: Emotional Responsive Attunement in Couples after a Child's Death

Within Western cultural traditions, the idea that parents should talk about the death of their child with each other is deeply rooted. However, across bereaved parent couples there are wide variations in communication about their grief with each other. In this study, we explored the experiences of bereaved couples related to the process of talking and not talking. We used a thematic coding approach to analyze 20 interviews with 26 bereaved parents (11 interviewed as couples, four as individuals). Four main meanings emerged out of our analysis: not talking because of the inadequacy and pointlessness of words in grief, not talking as a way to regulate emotions in daily life, not talking as an expression of a personal, intimate process, and not talking because the partner has the same loss but a different grief process. In addition, we found that the process of talking and not talking can partly be understood as an emotional responsive process on an intrapersonal and interpersonal level. In this process partners search for a bearable distance from their own grief and their partner's, and attune with their relational context. A better understanding of this process is sought in a dialectical approach, emphasizing the value of both talking and not talking in a tense relationship with each other. Implications for clinical work are described.     

Resilience to loss in bereaved spouses, bereaved parents, and bereaved gay men

Recent research has indicated that many people faced with highly aversive events suffer only minor, transient disruptions in functioning and retain a capacity for positive affect and experiences. This article reports 2 studies that replicate and extend these findings among bereaved parents, spouses, and caregivers of a chronically ill life partner using a range of self-report and objective measures of adjustment. Resilience was evidenced in half of each bereaved sample when compared with matched, nonbereaved counterparts and 36% of the caregiver sample in a more conservative, repeated-measures ipsative comparison. Resilient individuals were not distinguished by the quality of their relationship with spouse/partner or caregiver burden but were rated more positively and as better adjusted by close friends.     

Cognitive Schemata and Processing Among Parents Bereaved by Infant Death

The present prospective study examined cognitive schemata and processing among 93 parents bereaved by infant death. The Trauma Constellation Identification Scale (TCIS) was used to assess maladaptive cognitive schemata associated with the loss. The impact of pre-, peri-, and post-trauma factors on the TCIS scores was assessed. Compared to parents who had not lost an infant, bereaved parents displayed significantly higher TCIS scores. High TCIS scores were significantly associated with PTSD as well as general symptomatology. Although interesting gender differences were found, the variables most strongly related to TCIS scores were posttraumatic emotional coping and cognitive processing.     

The effects of preparedness for suicide following the death of a young adult child

Suicide deaths are often viewed as sudden and unexpected. Research examining bereavement responses to suicide are generally set within this conceptual framework. Twenty-two parents were interviewed about their bereavement experience following the suicide death of a young adult son or daughter. Data analyzed using narrative methods revealed the concept of preparedness. Three distinct preparedness narratives were identified, termed turbulent-relief, tragedy, and reflective plots. The data presented here highlights the way in which these different situations influence the resultant grief. Understanding preparedness for suicide assists in explaining the variety of grief responses in parents bereaved in this manner.     

The Aging Of Grief: Parents' Grieving Of Israeli Soldiers

Abstract

This chapter examines long-term parental grief of soldiers within the context of the Israeli society. Parental grief is discussed along the life span, commencing at the immediate phase following the loss through the bereavement process in middle to late adulthood and its manifestations in aging. Interviews with a group of elderly bereaved parents whose sons were killed during military service give further support to previous findings regarding the notion that the passage of time has no diminishing effect on their grief nor does it relinquish their attachment to the deceased. With aging, there appears to be an increase in internalized involvement with the long-lost child, fears of fading memories, and the need to eternalize the deceased. In reviewing the past, parents reevaluate their coping with the loss and their relationship with the surviving children. The parents' preoccupation is twofold: On one hand, the strong attachment seems to continue in inner representations of the lost child, and, on the other, this preoccupation is enhanced externally owing to Israeli society's attitude toward dead soldiers. An intersection is therefore established between society and bereaved families. Grief is apparently a central theme in aging parents who are preoccupied with the “aging” of their grief rather than their own aging.     

Mentalizing in Parents after Traumatic Loss. Analysis of Couple Counseling

Abstract

The aim of the study is to explore whether bereaved parents’ capacity to mentalize is related to their progression through grieving and how it changes during couple therapy. The clients’ RF levels were assessed using the Reflective Functioning Scale and Psychotherapy Reflective Functioning Scale Manual. The content of the sessions was analyzed using Thematic Analysis. At the beginning of the therapy, concrete images of the child’s death were more frequent and the parents’ RF was lower than their general RF level. As the therapy progressed these images were gradually supplanted by more mental references to the deceased child.