Abstract
The literature on the phenomenology of childhood bereavement is reviewed.
Several authors, particularly in the psychoanalytic literature, have suggested or supported the concept of “absence of grief” in children, based on the postulate that children are unable to tolerate the intense affects of mourning. More recently, systematic studies of nonclinical samples of bereaved children have found “absence of grief” to be uncommon, with most children in fact showing features such as sadness, crying, irritability, and a wide variety of other affective and behavioural symptoms. There does not appear to be a coherent syndrome of childhood bereavement, although tentative associations have been found between some phenomenological features and various child-related, family-related, societal, and circumstantial factors. The level of overall psychological adjustment after parental loss is both variable and controversial. Several tentative predictors of adverse reactions have been described.
The possible place of childhood bereavement in current nosology is discussed. Preliminary evidence suggests that the phenomenology of childhood bereavement differs considerably from the DSM-III-R description of “uncomplicated bereavement.” Recent evidence suggests that the DSM-III-R concept of uncomplicated bereavement needs to be expanded to include many of the affective and behavioural features of childhood bereavement, although confirmatory controlled research is required. Suggestions for improvement of research designs are made.