Anniversary Reactions Research Articles

Measuring symptoms of grief and bereavement.

As part of an effort to develop an instrument to measure grief, a 58-item questionnaire was completed by 211 subjects who had lost a loved one because of death. The results demonstrated wide individual variations in specific symptoms and in their intensity and duration. Long after the immediate grief period, most bereaved individuals continued to feel upset, empty, or tearful; many experienced anniversary reactions and/or physical symptoms; and some had persistent identification phenomena. Although the acute dysphoria peaked between 1 and 2 years, several grief-related feelings, symptoms, and behaviors continued indefinitely. The relevance of present work and directions for future studies are discussed.

Atypical Grief: Anniversary Reactions

Atypical Grief: Anniversary Reactions

Anniversary Reactions

Anniversary Reactions

Psychogenic Determination of Time of Illness or Death by Anniversary Reactions and Emotional Deadlines

• Many factors interact in determining man's illness and death. Psychodynamic contributions and conscious and unconscious emotional conditioning are receiving increasingly rewarding attention. This paper selects the question why now?, the problem of time, time patterns, and time markers as the focus for observations, generalizations and theoretical suggestions. Let us look at some data: Example 1. Three of the first four Presidents of the United States to die, died on the 4th of JUly. Two who signed the Declaration of Independence died on its fiftieth anniversary. Philip Hone, the mayor of New York City from 1828 to 1851, recorded in his diary on page 43, dated Thursday, July 5, 1831, the following: In the midst of the festivities of the celebration of Independence yesterday, the death of James Monroe was announced. He died at half-past three o'clock at the house of his son-in-law. Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur, in this city. The venerable patriot has been ill and his life despaired of for several months past, and he seems to have lingered until this time to add to the number of revolutionary patriots whose deaths have occurred on this memorable anniversary. Of four ex-presidents who have died, three have departed on the 4th of July, and of this number, two, who were signers of the august instrument which declared the political birth of our country, died on the 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826. (These two were John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.) Example 2. A former heavy-weight champion of the world, Primo Carnera, had been in failing health for three years. As he wasted away from cirrhosis of the liver, he returned to the Italian mountain town of his birth. Three weeks later

Anniversary Reactions, Trauma, and Mourning

(1970). Anniversary Reactions, Trauma, and Mourning. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly: Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 347-371.

Report of Multiple Periodic Anniversary Reactions in one Individual

Report of Multiple Periodic Anniversary Reactions in one Individual

A Report of Multiple Periodic Anniversary Reactions in One Individual

Case Studies1 March 1963A Report of Multiple Periodic Anniversary Reactions in One IndividualJAMES H. EARLS, STEWART WOLF, M.D., F.A.C.P.JAMES H. EARLSSearch for more papers by this author, STEWART WOLF, M.D., F.A.C.P.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-58-3-530 SectionsAboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail ExcerptDespite the widespread interest in bodily disorders occurring repeatedly on the anniversary of emotionally distressing events, there have been comparatively few reports of the anniversary reaction in the literature since its original description by Hilgard in 1953 (1). The present case report concerns one patient with 3 anniversary reactions each recurring periodically. The reactions involved the respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, and the integument.CASE REPORTA 72-year-old woman came to the Oklahoma University Medical Center in March, 1962, with the complaints of hay fever each August for the past 38 years, diarrhea each July for the past 20 years, and...

Childhood parent and sibling loss in adult patients. A comparative study.

Stimulated by the report of Hilgard, in which she called attention to the temporal coincidence of anniversary reactions in hospitalized patients with histories of childhood parent loss, and by the psychoanalytic observations of Fleming and her collaborators who have investigated the effect of orphanhood in childhood on ego development and the formation of a transference neurosis, the author undertook the review of all of the cases that he had seen in his office practice over an 8-year period, where there had been either parental or sibling deaths prior to the patient's 19th birthday. The purpose of this communication is to present and briefly discuss the results of this survey and to indicate areas for future study. Method of Investigation The general population in this investigation consisted of all patients personally evaluated by the author over an 8-year span in his private psychiatric office

Anniversary reactions in parents precipitated by children.

(1953). Anniversary Reactions in Parents Precipitated by Children. Psychiatry: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 73-80.