Anger, forgiveness, and the goal of distal reconciliation: Predictors of complicated grief reactions to suicide-related bereavement.

摘要

Suicide-bereaved individuals may be especially vulnerable to developing severe Complicated Grief (CG) symptoms post-loss. Literature-supported risk factors for CG after suicide include time elapsed since the loss, interpersonal support, adult attachment style, and kinship relation to the deceased person. In addition, I proposed that higher levels of dispositional forgiveness may protect survivors against CG by promoting reconciliation during the grieving process. In contrast, anger may hinder reconciliation and place survivors at higher risk for CG. My study examined the predictive value of dispositional forgiveness and anger over and above established predictors and identified the most parsimonious predictive model for CG symptomatology via model optimization (Kline, 2004). The study participants included 201 suicide survivors (9.0% male 90.5% female) who were an average of 49.89 years of age and reported losing a child to suicide (53.2%) an average of 66.17 months prior to participation. The study utilized the Heartland Forgiveness Scale (Thompson et al., 2005), the Inventory of Complicated Grief (Prigerson, Maciejewski, et al., 1995), the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (Spielberger, 1999), the Hogan Grief Reaction Checklist-Blame and Anger subscale (Hogan, Greenfield, & Schmidt, 2001), the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (Cohen, Mermelstein, Karmack, & Hoberman, 1985), and a demographic questionnaire addressing time elapsed post-loss and kinship ties to the deceased. Model 1 (established predictors only) was significant R2 = .46, adjusted R2 = .43, F(10, 190) = 15.95, p .001. Model 2 (including proposed predictors) accounted for a significant amount of variance above and beyond established predictors [ R2 = .58, adjusted R2 = .55, R2 = .12, F (4, 186) = 13.39, p .001]. Model optimization identified bereavement-specific anger, State Anger, time elapsed since the loss, sibling kinship ties, and other kinship ties as the most robust predictors of CG severity. This model was also significant, R2 = .52, adjusted R2 = .51, F (5, 195) = 41.95, p .001, with bereavement-specific anger demonstrating the most predictive value. These findings suggest that anger might play a more critical role in the development and maintenance of CG than the literature currently supports.