COMPARATIVE GRIEF EXPERIENCES OF BEREAVED TWINS AND OTHER BEREAVED RELATIVES

The nature of grief experienced by bereaved twins and other bereaved i ndividuals was examined with reference to their relatedness to the dec reased. Two-hundred and seventy-nine bereaved twins completed the Grie f Experience Inventory (GEI) as part of an ongoing study of twin loss. Twins' scores on all GEI scales significantly exceeded those of 102 n on-twin individuals who experienced relatively recent bereavement. Org anizing this early bereavement group by relationship to the deceased, scores of a subset of recently bereaved twins exceeded those of bereav ed children and spouses, and were slightly higher than those of bereav ed parents. However, the majority of twins' scores were significantly higher than those of parents in a different group, who had lost sons d uring military service. GEI scale scores of surviving monozygotic (MZ) twins generally exceeded those of surviving dizygotic (DZ) twins, wit h differences reached significance on five of nine scales. The implica tions of genetic and social relatedness between survivor and deceased are examined with respect to theoretical and applied aspects of bereav ement research and counseling.