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 avoidance as a verbal-autonomic response dissociation, or the reduced experience of negative emotion coupled with relatively high levels of autonomic responsivity. In contrast to the traditional assumption, individuals who at 6 months had shown verbal-autonomic dissociation had the mildest grief course through 14 months. Verbal-autonomic dissociation was linked to initially high levels of somatic symptoms, but to low somatic symptoms at 14 months. In the current investigation, we collected follow-up data on the same participants through 25 months postloss and assessed additional health-related variables. Verbal-autonomic dissociation was again linked to the mildest grief course with no evidence of delayed grief. This predictive relationship remained significant even when initial levels of grief were controlled. Further, no evidence was found for enduring or delayed health difficulties in association with verbal-autonomic dissociation. Implications for future bereavement research are discussed.