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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
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Type of continuing bonds expression and its comforting versus distressing nature: implications for adjustment among

Nigel P Field1, Wendy Packman2, Rama Ronen2

  • 1Pacific Graduate School of Psychology at Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA. nfield@paloaltou.edu

Death Studies
|February 13, 2014
PubMed

This study investigated type of continuing bonds (CB) expression and its comforting versus distressing nature in relation to psychosocial adjustment among bereaved mothers. Twenty-eight mothers whose child had died within the previous five years participated in a CB interview in which they rated the extent they used each of 11 different types of CB expression during the past month and the degree to which they experienced each of the CB expressions as comforting and distressing. CB expressions involving illusions and hallucinations of the deceased child were predictive of greater distress whereas those involving belief that the deceased child was aware of the mother or communicating with her through dreams were not associated with symptoms, but instead linked to greater spirituality. Furthermore, mothers who reported CB as more comforting than distressing had lower symptom ratings. The implications of the findings for the attachment theory perspective on unresolved loss are discussed.

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