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

Individuals who fail to "work through" the emotional significance of a loss have traditionally been assumed to stiffer increased grief: Bonanno et al, (1995) tested this assumption by operationally defining emotional avoidanc e as a verbal-autonomic response dissociation, or the reduced experience of negative emotion coupled with relatively high levels of autonomic responsi vity. In contrast to the traditional assumption, individuals who at 6 month s had shown verbal-autonomic dissociation had the mildest grief course thro ugh 14 months. Verbal-autonomic dissociation was linked to initially high l evels of somatic symptoms, but to low somatic symptoms at 14 months. In the current investigation, we collected follow-up data on the same participant s through 25 months postloss and assessed additional health-related variabl es. Verbal-autonomic dissociation was again linked to the mildest grief cou rse with no evidence of delayed grief. This predictive relationship remaine d significant even when initial levels of grief were controlled. Further, n o evidence was found for enduring or delayed health difficulties in associa tion with verbal-autonomic dissociation. Implications for future bereavemen t research are discussed.