Mourning and the prevention of melancholia

Freud suggested that a high level of ambivalence in the previous relationship between the bereaved and the deceased was likely to complicate the process of mourning, perhaps leading to melancholia. Within a study testing the effectiveness of preventive intervention, a subgroup of recently bereaved widows (n = 22) were rated as having had a highly ambivalent marital relationship with their spouses. Psychotherapeutic intervention to promote the resolution of the ambivalence within the mourning process was given to a randomly selected group of these women during the first three months following the husbands' deaths. All subjects were followed up independently by questionnaire 13 months after the death. Intervention subjects (n = 12) showed significantly better general health and a lower level of depressive illness than controls (n = 10).