Verbal-autonomic dissociation and adaptation to midlife conjugal loss : A follow-up at 25 months

Abstract

Individuals who fail to “workthrough” the emotional significance of a loss havetraditionally been assumed to suffer increased grief.Bonanno et al. (1995) tested this assumption byoperationally defining emotional avoidance as a verbal-autonomicresponse dissociation, or the reduced experience ofnegative emotion coupled with relatively high levels ofautonomic responsivity. In contrast to the traditional assumption, individuals who at 6 months hadshown verbal-autonomic dissociation had the mildestgrief course through 14 months. Verbal-autonomicdissociation was linked to initially high levels ofsomatic symptoms, but to low somatic symptoms at 14months. In the current investigation, we collectedfollow-up data on the same participants through 25months post loss and assessed additional health-related variables. Verbal-autonomic dissociation wasagain linked to the mildest grief course with noevidence of delayed grief. This predictive relationshipremained significant even when initial levels of grief were controlled. Further, no evidence was foundfor enduring or delayed health difficulties inassociation with verbal-autonomic dissociation.Implications for future bereavement research arediscussed.