Early Parental Loss Research Articles

The relationships of childhood socio-demographic factors and early parental loss to major depression in adult life.

Sixty middle-aged urban women with a major depressive episode (DSM-III) diagnosed in a community survey were compared with those 400 participants of the study who had no history of major depression. There were no significant differences between groups regarding most childhood demographic variables such as grade of urbanization, social class, school education, size of sibship and ordinal position. The subjects with major depression and especially those with melancholia had experienced parental loss before age 17 significantly more often than had the controls. This difference dealt only with parental divorce and other separations but not with parental death. There were no significant differences regarding parental death between melancholics, non-melancholic major depressives and controls.

Childhood parental death and adult psychopathology.

Childhood parental death has frequently been linked with adult mental disorders--mostly depression. The authors found no association with psychiatric diagnosis among 72 inpatients who had experienced the death of a parent when they were children, compared with 460 other patients in the Chestnut Lodge Follow-Up Study. The patients with a childhood parental death did, however, have significantly greater family pathology and impaired social and heterosexual functioning. These results refute the view that childhood parental death is singularly casual of adult psychopathology but support its role in a multidetermining matrix of contributing factors.

Creativity As Repair by Andrew Brink

Andrew Brink, Creativity As Repair (Hamilton: The Cromlech Press, 1982). 114. $7.50 Andrew Brink, Professor of English and Associate Member of the Depart­ ment of Psychiatry at McMaster, is engaged in an ambitious, complex study of the creative process. His angle of vision follows that of W. R. D. Fairbairn and a particular school of psychoanalytic revision known as British object relations theory (the American sub-species being somewhat different). He refers to the present book as a “sequel” or “appendix” to his previous book, Loss and Symbolic Repair (Hamilton: The Cromlech Press, 1977). The earlier book studies Cowper, Donne, Traherne, Keats, and Sylvia Plath whose poems, Brink argues, often seek to “repair” the damage caused by the early loss of parents. (Cowper lost his mother when he was not yet six; Donne his father at four; Traherne both parents, apparently, during his fourth year; Keats his father at eight; Plath her “Daddy” at eight.) The earlier book effectively interprets poems by tracing their meanings to issues in the poets’ lives and trenchantly discusses the lives. In the book presently under review Brink challenges “the myth of crea­ tivity” by which, he says, “The artist is falsely seen as superior to the rest of us in both giftedness and ego strength.” His intent, a radical one that will surely raise opposition in many camps, is to build a “reparative theory of creativity.” From the viewpoint of the reparative theory, “Giftedness be­ comes the only tool in a desperate creative campaign to prevent ego disinte­ gration, the fear most typical of obsessional personalities. Creative obses­ sional are saved from despair by realizing the reparative potential which is a basic part of our human psycho-biological equipment” (79-80). Undoubtedly some of the objections will come from a multitude always resentful of Freud’s belief that works of art express neurotic conflicts. It seems cheeky for critics or analysts to call people capable of the highest human achievements “sick” or “inadequate” or to reduce precious works of art to mere manifestations of, or defences against, neurosis. Assuring the citizenry that not artists alone are called “neurotic” but everyone (who is not psychotic or psychopathic) remains tactless even when one includes one’s self. Nor does it assure the unconvinced that psychoanalysis is less hostile to the arts than to the populace at large. When Brink contends that lyric poets are “weaker” than the rest of us, he will seem to many to stretch an unpleasant, unattractive claim to the snapping point. Perhaps anticipating such objections, Brink concludes his monograph by eschewing normality and cure; he quotes the novelist John Fowles: “ ‘those of us who understand the Loss-Repair mechanism begin secretly to enjoy it and most certainly don’t want to be cured of it.’ What they want is relief from suffering, a means to escape intolerable tensions,” Brink adds. “The art 129 has been bought at too dear a price to give it up in the name of a doubtful concept, ‘normalcy’ ” (94). If the moralisms of diagnosis and object relations theory give offence — as they probably will “in our liberated time” — Brink does not retreat. He cites Milton’s advocacy that the poet “ ‘ought himself to be a true poem; that is a composition and pattern of the best and honorable things; not presuming to sing praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and practice of all that which is praiseworthy.’ ” He tells us that the scholarly community should “reclaim from art its neglected information as a cultural communication about ego distress.” “ If the arts were to become openly self-therapeutic, with the poet a kind of shaman, little would be lost and much guidance given in the bewildering task of holding together an ego. It would be worth trying to show that in other eras of culture, and in other societies, ritual, religion, and the attendant arts served better than they do in ours to sustain mental health” (97, 98). By these quotations I seek to give the flavour of an interesting and serious book. To those stout enough to continue after imperatives so grandly Mil­ tonic I address the following...

Suicide in recurrent affective disorder patients.

In a matched controlled study manic depressive patients who suicided were compared with those who did not suicide. Significantly more of those who suicided lived alone, had early parental loss, had attempted suicide in the past, and were depressed and suicidal at their last admission. The period after discharge was found to be a time of increased risk.

Views of Death from Sufferers of Early Loss

There exists a strong relationship between early parental loss and later depression and suicide. But what are the factors which mediate this relationship? An exploration of the death themes elicited by the T.A.T. from participants who had suffered the early loss of a parent suggests some possible answers. Results show that those who have sustained early losses are more easily reminded of the theme of death than those who have not. Further, they tend to structure the theme of death in a cognitively remote fashion. This tendency may indicate an unusual need for protection against the thought of death and may actually lessen the individual's ability to ward off death. It is recommended that attention be paid to the individual's affective and cognitive responses to death and that denial of death no longer be viewed as an inevitable aspect of the human condition.

Developmental histories of borderline patients

The developmental histories of 45 borderline inpatients, as defined by Gunderson-Singer criteria and the Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, were compared to 42 schizophrenic and 32 depressed controls defined by RDC. Three currently popular hypotheses for borderline personality development were systematically studied: a neurobehavioral model, a separation hypothesis, and a family-dynamic theory. A neurobehavioral survey revealed some complications of pregnancy; prematurity, persistent rocking, and temper tantrums in borderline patients but no increased incidence of hyperactivity, clumsiness, or learning difficulties compared to controls. Borderline patients experienced more early life parental loss and had greater difficulties with normal developmental separations. Their relationships with parents were negative and conflictual, with over-involved mothers and under-involved (or absent) fathers. While supporting the importance of separation trauma and a pathologic family structure, our data do not provide consistent support for a neurobehavioral origin of borderline development.

The association between early parental loss and diagnosis in the Iowa 500.

While a number of studies have found an association between the experience of death of a parent during childhood and the later development of depression as an adult, few of these studies have controlled for possible confounders such as social class, sibship size, parental age at birth, and the patient's age at admission. The results of several studies that do control for such confounders have been negative. The authors investigated the frequency of parental loss and parental death among 129 depressives, 155 schizophrenics, and 63 manics from the Iowa 500 data base. Using a logistic regression to control for confounders, depressives are found to experience early maternal death 3.4 times more frequently than the schizophrenics and 2.1 times more frequently than the bipolars. The failure to confirm other hypotheses and possible implications are discussed.

Depression in chronic schizophrenia.

Eighteen depressed chronic schizophrenic out-patients were matched with non-depressed schizophrenic out-patients. The depressed schizophrenics had had significantly more psychiatric admissions, past depression, past treatment for depression, significantly more had attempted suicide, lived alone, had low self-esteem, had early parental loss and had had more life events in the six months before the onset of depression. Depressive disorder in schizophrenic out-patients well controlled by neuroleptics may occur in those who are at risk for depression and experience an excess of life events.

Drugs and delinquency. A ten year follow-up of drug clinic patients.

The addiction and conviction status of 60 male patients who presented to a London drug clinic in 1970 was re-examined 10 years later. Eleven of the patients had died. Three-quarters of the survivors had been abstinent for five years and one quarter were still addicted in this time. Ninety-seven per cent had received a court conviction by 1981 and 83 per cent were convicted during follow-up. Neither hospital treatment, receipt of a clinic prescription nor imprisonment was associated with eventual abstinence. Poor outcome, in combined terms of continued addiction and re-conviction, related to early parental loss, poor academic achievement, conviction before drug use, longer imprisonment and a high conviction rate. Criminality emerges as the predominant and continuing expression of deviancy in these drug clinic patients.

Early parental loss and suicidal ideation in university students.

This study examined the relationship of early parental loss to suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in a group of university students attending a university mental health clinic. Seventy-five subjects with a history of parental loss before the age of 16 were compared to a control group of 61 subjects from intact homes for the presence of suicidal ideation and overt suicidal behaviour. Subjects with a history of early loss demonstrated significantly more suicidal ideation and more had made suicide attempts than had subjects from intact homes, and this relationship was even more marked when the consequences of the loss in terms of the subsequent family environment were considered. Where the loss resulted in the long-term disruption of family life, suicidal trends were prominent; where the family life stabilized, they were minimal. Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts occurred significantly more often among female subjects than males, and the loss of father and both parents was in excess of loss of mother among those with significant suicidal ideation. The findings support the hypothesis that early parental loss, under certain conditions, is a significant variable in the predisposition to suicidal behaviour and suggest avenues for further research.

Early parental loss in depressive neurosis compared with other neuroses.

In a matched controlled study 102 patients with neurotic depression were compared with other neurotics. There was significantly more parental loss before 17 years of age in the depressive patients.

Non-organic gastrointestinal illness: a medical and psychiatric study.

One hundred consecutive referrals to a general medical out-patient clinic were evaluated psychiatrically under blind conditions in order to investigate the nature and occurrence of non-organic disease presenting as gastrointestinal illness. Twenty-eight patients had marked psychiatric illness with or without physical illness, and there was an association between psychiatric illness and the absence of organic disease, as determined by outcome at follow-up of 4-11 months. Patients with obsessional traits were more at risk of non-organic illness. Historical items indicating a likelihood of non-organic gastrointestinal illness included "nerves", "depression", unhappy childhood, early parental loss and early separations from parents during childhood. Psychiatric illness often persisted after treatment for physical symptoms. Some of the techniques used in this study to identify psychiatric illness could be usefully employed in everyday practice.

Parental Deprivation and Depression in a Non-Clinical Group

Despite a large number of studies it remains unclear whether early parental loss or separation experiences from parents are associated with depression in adult life. In order to circumvent the possible confounding influence of psychiatric patients status, a non-clinical group was used to study any influence of early permanent parental loss and early parental separation on subsequent depressive experience in adulthood. The depressive experience of 236 post-graduate students was assessed using measures of trait depression, self-esteem, alienation, and incidence of depressive episodes. Depressive experience was not increased in those 27 subjects who had been permanently separated from a biological parent before the age of 16 years. When duration of separation from influential parent-figures was examined it was found that trait depression scores were increased in those who had experienced longer separation, but those subjects also rated their parent-figures as having been less caring. Findings are consistent with the view that it is the quality of any parental contribution, rather than its continuity, that is associated with subsequent depressive experience in adulthood.

Cognitive development and parental loss among the gifted, the exceptionally gifted and the creative.

This paper reports an analysis of descriptions of children with IQs of 155 or better. It is suggested that these children be distinguished from gifted children by the label exceptionally gifted. The paper reports some important cognitive differences between the two groups as well as the high rate of early parental loss among historically famous highly intelligent persons. This finding is discussed in the light of how certain parent-child relationships might contribute to the development of cognitive giftedness into high level of creative behavior.

Childhood experience and depression.

The possibility of a relationship between early parental loss and mental illness, suicide, or delinquency in later life is a well-known, although by no means universally accepted, theory. In this investigation, we have attempted to compare patients with carefully matched controls and to investigate, when possible, the various categories of depression separately. Also, as we felt that a study concerned with childhood deprivation based solely on the physical absence of parents would tell us little of the daily emotional experiences of the child, we have attempted to take into account the quality of the family relationships present in childhood.

Bereavement in Childhood and Depressive Psychosis

There have been many reports of the high incidence of early parental loss among groups of patients suffering from various psycho-pathological disorders. Bowlby (1951) cited numerous relevant studies in his influential monograph, and Gregory (1958) has critically reviewed a dozen others. More recently Brown (1961) reported a significantly higher incidence of parental loss in childhood among depressed patients than among the general population, and Beck et al. (1963) found that the incidence among highly depressed psychiatric patients was higher than among non-depressed patients. Both these writers aver that their findings provide evidence that parental loss in childhood is a significant factor in the development of a depressive illness in adult life.