Robert A Neimeyer
Biographic Data
| ID | 181511 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert A Neimeyer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert A |
| FAMILY NAME | Neimeyer |
| SIGNATURE | NEIMEYER R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Memphis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6918-3445 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 156 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 814 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 153 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Post-Loss Growth (PLG) in bereavement: The missing link in posttraumatic growth
Posttraumatic growth in the bereaved, representing a clinically useful and evidence-based construct, refers to those dimensions of growth arising from the death of another, just as it might arise from exposure to any other highly stressful event. However, this neglects unique expressions of growth deriving from the pre- and post-death relationship of the survivor to the deceased. We propose the term Post-Loss Growth (PLG) to highlight how this re…
Ayahuasca-assisted meaning reconstruction therapy for grief: A non-randomized clinical trial protocol
https://clinicaltrials.gov, identifier NCT06150859
Grief Attack Questionnaire: Instrument construction and initial validation
Grief attacks-sudden, unexpected and intense upsurges of loss-related anguish-are a common grief-specific phenomenon. However, no research has identified the range of symptomatology that characterizes this experience, nor is there a validated instrument to measure its intensity. Therefore, our objectives were to identify the components underlying grief attacks, develop a self-report measure of the phenomenon, and explore the circumstances in whic…
Experiences of Fathers in Norway Attending an Online Course on Therapeutic Writing After the Death of a Child
After the unexpected death of a child, bereaved parents require prompt access to helpful support systems. Online therapeutic writing courses can make such support accessible. Because few studies have included bereaved fathers as participants, we explored the experiences of fathers whose children died unexpectedly and who were part of an online course of therapeutic writing in Norway. We piloted two courses (group 1, six weeks, n = 9; group 2, 5 w…
The Meaning in Loss protocol: A clinical trial of online grief therapy
For a minority of the bereaved, the loss of a significant other can trigger an overwhelming emotional reaction and impaired functioning across life domains, known as prolonged grief disorder (PGD). Hence, ongoing efforts have been made to refine existing treatments to increase their efficacy and to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of grief reactions. This study presents the results of an open clinical trial of the feasibility and effectiveness of t…
Validation of the Portuguese version of the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (Isles) in a sample of bereaved individuals
The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (ISLES) evaluates the ability to integrate stressful experiences into one's meaning system. The present study developed and validated a version of this scale for a bereaved Portuguese-speaking population, utilizing a sample of 242 adults who had lost a significant other to diverse causes of death. The sample was predominantly female, educated, married, or in consensual unions, and actively emplo…
When does disruption of meaning in bereavement become debilitating? Screening for deleterious outcomes with the Isles-SF
Meaning reconstruction is a central process in bereavement adaptation. However, clinical measures or means for identifying individuals whose struggles with meaning making have become dysfunctional have yet to be developed for clinicians to readily use in practice. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic effectiveness of the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale-Short Form (ISLES-SF) for measuring clinically…
Can a global score be derived from the Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale-Short Form (Isles-SF)? Empirical support for a bi-factor model
The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale-Short Form (ISLES-SF) is a popular, two-factor measure of meaning-making. Although researchers have used this instrument to calculate a global index of meaning-making, there has been little evidence to support this practice. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the validity of this approach by analyzing data from 2,380 American adults during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemi…
Construction of meaning in survivors of suicide loss: A Spanish translation and application of the Meaning in Loss Codebook
The increasing incidence of suicide loss in many nations makes an in-depth understanding of survivors' needs and responses a compelling priority. Accordingly, we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 10 Spanish adult suicide loss survivors exploring their attempt to reaffirm or reconstruct a world of meaning that had been challenged by their loss. A qualitative analysis of the content of the interviews was carried out from both an …
Rewriting grief following bereavement and non-death loss: A pilot writing-for-wellbeing study
This mixed-method Writing-for-wellbeing pilot study used a pre–post-follow-up design with 20 adults in two groups (10 in a bereaved group and 10 in a non-death/living losses group) to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of a longitudinal writing intervention in helping participants to work through their grief. Participants completed measures of prolonged grief, adaptive coping, anxiety and depression, and meaning reconst…
Grief and functional impairment following Covid-19 loss in a treatment-seeking sample: The mediating role of meaning
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented levels of grief and psychological distress in community samples. We examined unique pandemic grief risk factors, dysfunctional grief, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, general psychiatric distress, disrupted meaning, and functional impairment in a treatment-seeking sample of people bereaved from COVID-19 in the United Kingdom. A sample of 183 participants (91.80% female; M = 47.40 year…
Living with loss
Our lives are rooted in narratives and narrative practices. We depend on stories almost as much as we depend on the air we breathe. Air keeps us alive; stories give meaning to our existence. They b
The Up-Side of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Are Core Belief Violation and Meaning Making Associated with Post-Traumatic Growth
The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health has been extensively documented, while its possible positive impact on the individual, defined as Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), has been much less investigated. The present study examines the association between PTG and socio-demographic aspects, pre-pandemic psychological adjustment, stressors directly linked to COVID-19 and four psychological factors theoretically implicated in the ch…
Pandemic Grief and Complications in Bereavement: From Research Evidence to Clinical Relevance
Pandemic Grief and Complications in Bereavement: From Research Evidence to Clinical Relevance
En raison de l’inquiétude générale suscitée par l’impact psychologique de la perte d’un proche victime du COVID-19, nous appliquons notre programme de recherche à multiples facettes sur cette cohorte vulnérable de personnes confrontées au deuil au cours de la pandémie. Nous commençons par un résumé de la construction et de la validation de la Pandemic Grief Scale, une mesure brève et fiable en cinq points des symptômes et des difficultés clinique…
Prolonged grief disorder: A bibliometric analysis
Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) has become a subject of increased interest among both researchers and practitioners, owing both to its recent inclusion in the DSM-5-TR and the growing evidence of widespread complications of bereavement in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. From a set of 467 studies obtained from the Scopus database during the period 2009 to 2022, the present research provides bibliographic data on the most influential authors o…
Meaning Co‐Construction: Facilitating Shared Family Meaning‐Making in Bereavement
Meaning‐oriented approaches to grief therapy have made substantial contributions by defining the internal processes of meaning‐making and, more recently, clinical scholars have introduced relational approaches as means for continuing bonds with the deceased and increasing social support for the bereaved. However, the complicated interactive processes of interpersonal meaning‐making pose added challenges as family members attempt to coregulate eac…
Adaptation of the Spanish Grief and Meaning Reconstruction Inventory: An Initial Validation and Network Analysis
The current study was conducted to adapt the Grief and Meaning Reconstruction Inventory (GMRI) into Spanish and to establish its psychometric properties in a group of 202 mourners seeking treatment in Spain. A confirmatory factor analysis established that the Spanish GMRI yielded eight factors, displaying strong reliability and convergent validity, through the scale's inverse correlation with the Inventory of Complicated Grief and various measure…
Grief Impairment Scale: A biopsychosocial measure of grief-related functional impairment
Though most mourners are resilient, a minority of the bereaved experience disabling grief accompanied by clinically significant impairment in important areas of functioning. Although impairment measures exist, they have notable limitations in the context of bereavement. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the Grief Impairment Scale (GIS), which was designed to identify the impact of grief on biopsychosocial function…
Unfinished business and self-blaming emotions among those bereaved by a Covid-19 death
In view of the mounting death toll of COVID-19 worldwide and the complicating circumstances that commonly accompany such losses, we studied the grief experiences of 209 adult mourners who lost a loved one to coronavirus with a focus on self-blaming emotions and unresolved issues with the deceased. We found universal endorsement of one or more forms of self-blame (guilt, regret, shame) or unfinished business (UB), with over one-third of mourners e…
Living with loss
Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief 2.0 (ICSG 2.0): Validation of a revised measure of spiritual distress in bereavement
Spirituality has long served as a source of solace for many grievers following a loss. For other mourners, whose bereavement experience has been significantly challenged by struggles in their relationship with God and/or their faith community, the opposite is true. Complicated spiritual grief (CSG) is a spiritual crisis following the loss of a loved one. To assess CSG in samples of bereaved adults, a simple-to-use, multidimensional measure of spi…
Circumstances of the death and associated risk factors for severity and impairment of Covid-19 grief
This study examined the relationship between reactions of the bereaved to conditions of the pandemic and severity of their grief and levels of impairment. A total of 831 American adults who lost a loved one to COVID-19 responded to validated measures of dysfunctional grief and functional impairment, as well as items assessing unique complications associated with the pandemic (e.g. resentment toward doctors, social isolation). In combination, circ…
Risk factors for dysfunctional grief and functional impairment for all causes of death during the Covid-19 pandemic: The mediating role of meaning
The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with significant social changes due to legislative and public health requirements, has changed the way in which people experience grief. We examined whether dysfunctional grief symptoms, disrupted meaning, risk factors, and functional impairment differed between people bereaved from COVID-19 and from other natural or violent causes in this same period. A sample of 409 participants (67.73% male; M = 37.54 years) comp…
Social isolation and the mitigation of coronavirus anxiety: The mediating role of meaning
This study examined core belief violation and meaning making as mechanisms mediating the relationship between adherence to social isolation policies for mitigating coronavirus transmission and reduced coronavirus anxiety (CA). Adherence to social isolation policies (social distancing, sheltering in place, and cessation of long-distance travel), use of nonsocial precautionary measures (handwashing, wearing a mask), core belief violation, meaning m…
Sense-Making, Grief, and the Experience of Violent Loss: Toward a Mediational Model
Bereavement following violent loss by accident, homicide or suicide increases the risk for complications in grieving. This is the first study to examine a constructivist model of grief that proposes that sense-making, or the capacity to construct an understanding of the loss experience, mediates the association between violent death and complicated grief symptomatology. An ethnically diverse sample of 1,056 recently bereaved college students comp…
Continuing Bonds and Reconstructing Meaning: Mitigating Complications in Bereavement
Drawing on attachment theory and constructivist conceptualizations of bereavement, the authors assessed the relation between continuing bonds coping and meaning reconstruction following the death of a loved one and complicated grief symptomatology. Five hundred six young adults in the first two years of bereavement from a variety of losses completed the Inventory of Complicated Grief along with measures of the strength of their ongoing attachment…
Does Grief Counseling Work
Most bereavement caregivers accept as a truism that their interventions are helpful. However, an examination of the bereavement intervention literature suggests that the scientific basis for accepting the efficacy of grief counseling may be quite weak. This article summarizes the findings of four recent qualitative and quantitative reviews of the bereavement intervention literature. It then discusses three possible explanations for these surprisi…
Mourning and Meaning
Viewed in an expanded frame, the phenomena of grief and bereavement call for analysis in sociological, psychological, and psychiatric terms. In this article, the authors argue that a common theme in these accounts is that of the meaning of loss as expressed in both individual and collective attempts at adaptation. At a societal level, communal rituals, discursive practices, and local cultures provide resources for integrating the significance of …
Psychological Research on Death Attitudes: An Overview and Evaluation
One of the most substantial legacies of Herman Feifel was his pioneering research on attitudes toward death and dying in a variety of populations. The authors review the large and multifaceted literature on death anxiety, fear, threat and acceptance, focusing on the attitudes toward death and dying of relevant professional and patient groups, and the relationship of death concern to aging, physical and mental health, religiosity, and terror manag…
Designing in-depth semi-structured interviews for revealing meaning reconstruction after loss
The recent upsurge in the use of qualitative empirical studies, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of human reactions to loss, requires a methodological account of how to conduct better qualitative research with regard to data collection. This paper offers six general interview guidelines aimed at assisting researchers to achieve quality interviews in qualitative bereavement studies, based on the theoretical framework of meaning (re)constru…
Meaning reconstruction in bereavement: Development of a research program
The death of a significant person, especially when it comes tragically or prematurely, can shake the foundations of our assumptive and relational world and lead to anguished attempts to find meaning in the loss and in our lives in its aftermath. In this article, I review one program of research focused on this attempt at meaning reconstruction, describe recently developed measures of meaning in mourning, and discuss several therapeutic techniques…
Similarity and Attraction: A Longitudinal Study
Although it is generally acknowledged that psychological similarity influences the development of same-sex friendship, empirical studies often fail to delineate the differential impact of attitude, personality, value, construct and structural similarity as predictors of attraction. The present naturalistic study examines the discriminability of these similarity subtypes, and notes the impact of each upon friendship formation over 8 weeks of assig…
Complicated Spiritual Grief I: Relation to Complicated Grief Symptomatology Following Violent Death Bereavement
Losing a loved one to violent death has been associated with poor mental health outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and complicated grief (CG), a protracted, debilitating, and sometimes life-threatening reaction to loss. In addition, recent research suggests that traumatic loss can violate mourners' basic assumptive worldviews, and can precipitate a spiritual crisis following loss, also known as complicated spiritual gr…
Cause of Death and the Quest for Meaning After the Loss of a Child
This study examined patterns of making meaning among 155 parents whose children died from a variety of violent and non-violent causes. Findings indicated 53% of violent loss survivors could not make sense of their loss, as compared to 32% of non-violent loss survivors. Overall, there was overlap in sense-making strategies across different causes of death, with many parents invoking spiritual and religious meanings and the cultivation of empathy f…
Risk factors for dysfunctional grief and functional impairment for all causes of death during the Covid-19 pandemic: The mediating role of meaning
The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with significant social changes due to legislative and public health requirements, has changed the way in which people experience grief. We examined whether dysfunctional grief symptoms, disrupted meaning, risk factors, and functional impairment differed between people bereaved from COVID-19 and from other natural or violent causes in this same period. A sample of 409 participants (67.73% male; M = 37.54 years) comp…
Complicated Spiritual Grief II: A Deductive Inquiry Following the Loss of a Loved One
Recent studies have revealed an association between complicated grief-a severe, prolonged response to the loss of a loved one-and complicated spiritual grief-a spiritual crisis following loss. Furthermore, bereavement research has benefitted from a number of studies using qualitative inquiry as a means of examining the experiences of individuals grieving a variety of types of losses. However, a gap in the literature remains in terms of the qualit…
Measuring Meaning: Searching for and Making Sense of Spousal Loss in Late-Life
Despite much recent theorizing, evidence regarding the temporal relationship of sense-making to adjustment following bereavement remains relatively sparse. This study examined the role of searching for and making sense of loss in late-life spousal bereavement, using prospective, longitudinal data from the Changing Lives of Older Couples (CLOC) project (N = 250). Searching at 6 and 18 months post-loss predicted both contemporaneous and subsequent …
Sex differences in death anxiety: Testing the emotional expressiveness hypothesis
Several researchers have reported sex differences in death anxiety, but such differences have not been systematically investigated. This study attempts to test the generality of elevated death anxiety of women in a heterogeneous, racially mixed adult sample (h = 117). Moreover, we tested the viability of one explanation of this apparent gender difference. We statistically controlled for potential sex differences in self-disclosure or “social desi…
Pandemic Grief Scale: A screening tool for dysfunctional grief due to a Covid-19 loss
Millions of people are grieving the loss of someone who died of COVID-19. However, there have been no screening tools developed to identify individuals who may be suffering from dysfunctional grief during the pandemic. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the properties of the Pandemic Grief Scale (PGS), which is a brief mental health screener to identify probable cases of dysfunctional grief associated with a COVID-…
Cognitive structure and death anxiety
One goal of thanatology is to study the idiosyncratic belief systems that individuals have regarding the meaning of death. Although more recent multidimensional scales for assessing death anxiety represent an improvement over earlier global scales, both are limited in their ability to measure subtle structural properties of such belief systems. The present paper investigated the feasibility of studying personal meanings of death through the use o…
The Meaning of Loss Codebook: Construction of a System for Analyzing Meanings Made in Bereavement
Recent research on grieving populations has emphasized the role of meaning making in adaptation to bereavement, typically relying on simple self-reports of the extent to which respondents have been able to find sense or benefit in their loss. The present article reports the development of a reliable and comprehensive coding system for analyzing meanings made in the wake of the death of a loved one, yielding a 30-category codebook demonstrating ex…
Actualization, integration, and fear of death: A test of the additive model
Considerable research over the last ten years has suggested that individuals who are less actualized or who see themselves as more discrepant with their ideals are prone to experience higher levels of death fear and anxiety than those who are relatively more actualized or have lower self-ideal discrepancy. Similarly, a large body of research employing the Threat Index has indicated that persons with more integrated conceptions of self and death s…
Attachment, Continuing Bonds, and Complicated Grief Following Violent Loss: Testing a Moderated Model
There is increasing consensus that mourners' general attachment security and ongoing sense of connectedness to the deceased figure prominently in adjustment to bereavement. However, the interplay between these variables has not been investigated thoroughly. We therefore studied 195 young adults who were bereaved by violent causes (homicide, suicide, and fatal accidents) in the previous 2 years, measuring their attachment-related insecurities (anx…
The Grief and Meaning Reconstruction Inventory (GMRI): Initial Validation of a New Measure
Although increasing numbers of grief theorists, researchers, and therapists have begun to focus on the quest for meaning in lives disrupted by loss, no convenient and psychometrically validated measure of meanings made specifically in bereavement has been available to guide their efforts. To construct such a measure, the authors began with a systematic content analysis of sense-making, benefit finding, and identity reconstruction themes gleaned f…
Unfinished Business in Bereavement
Unfinished business (incomplete, unexpressed or unresolved relationship issues with the deceased) is frequently discussed as a risk factor for chronic and severe grief reactions. However, few empirical studies have examined this construct. The present study aimed to address this gap in the literature by examining the presence and severity of unfinished business as well as common themes of unfinished business reported in open-ended qualitative nar…
Inventory of Complicated Spiritual Grief: Development and Validation of a New Measure
Although spirituality often has been associated with better outcomes following bereavement, it can be significantly challenged by loss as well. Studies have shown that some bereaved individuals suffer profoundly not only in relation to the death of their loved one but also in their relationship with God and their faith community, a condition known as complicated spiritual grief (CSG). However, to date, in the absence of a simple, multidimensional…
The Complexity of Couple Communication in Bereavement: An Illustrative Case Study
Sharing grief experiences, or "storying"grief can be a key resource in adapting to loss, one that can contribute to stronger bonds and relational intimacy within the family. In this article, the authors conceptualize communication between grieving family members in terms of 3 "D" processes, emphasizing the extent to which such communication is dialectic, dialogic, and dynamic in nature. They illustrate the complexity of sharing about a mutual los…
Faith in the Wake of Homicide: Religious Coping and Bereavement Distress in an African American Sample
Mourners often rely on faith following loss, but not all find spirituality comforting. Some grievers engage in negative religious coping (NRC), signaled by behaviors and thoughts such as anger toward God or their faith community, feeling spiritually abandoned, or questioning God's power. Our longitudinal study of 46 African American homicide survivors explored the relation of both positive religious coping (PRC) and NRC to complicated grief (CG) …
Death Anxiety and Attitudes Towardthe Elderly Among Older Adults: The Role of Gender and Ethnicity
The article investigated the relationship between death anxiety, attitudes toward older adults, and personal anxiety toward one's own aging in a group of 197 older men and women. As predicted, negative attitudes toward other older adults were predicted by personal anxieties about aging and death, and, more specifically, fear of the unknown. In addition, several distinctive anxieties were noted for particular subgroups of respondents. Older women …
Convergent Validity, Situational Stability and Meaningfulness of the Threat Index
A pair of related experiments examined the psychometric properties on the Threat Index (TI), a theoretically based scale for the assessment of threat of death. An extremity scoring revealed that both structured interview and paper-and-pencil versions of the TI were more meaningful to respondents than was a similar instrument utilizing semantic differential dimensions. The TI displayed generally low convergence with Lester's Fear of Death Scale, T…
Death Orientation in the Suicide Intervention Worker
In light of the apparently important contribution of a counselor's personal characteristics to his/her clinical effectiveness, an examination of the death concerns of suicide intervention workers was undertaken. Results suggest that, relative to controls, crisis workers have consistently higher apprehension about their own mortality, but do not differ from controls in their degree of concern about the deaths of others. The significance of these f…
Self/Ideal Discrepancy and Fear of Death: The Test of an Existential Hypothesis
The investigators reasoned, after Sartre, that death would be more threatening to individuals whose projected identities were radically incomplete, since it would finalize the meaning of their lives at a level discrepant with their ideals. In order to test this hypothesis, 101 adult respondents from a number of community groups were divided into “high” and “low” discrepancy categories on the basis of a modified Self/Ideal self “split” score deriv…
Functional similarity and interpersonal attraction
Conceptual differentiation, integration and empathic prediction
Several investigators have examined the relationship of a rater's cognitive complexity to accurate empathic prediction of a target's self‐concept or behavior, with mixed results. The present study sought to clarify this relation by considering both the conceptual differentiation (functionally independent construction) and integration (ordination) of both rater and target as they bear on predictive accuracy at early and later stages of acquaintanc…
Concurrent and Predictive Validity of the Suicide Intervention Response Inventory
Actualization, integration, and fear of death: A test of the additive model
Considerable research over the last ten years has suggested that individuals who are less actualized or who see themselves as more discrepant with their ideals are prone to experience higher levels of death fear and anxiety than those who are relatively more actualized or have lower self-ideal discrepancy. Similarly, a large body of research employing the Threat Index has indicated that persons with more integrated conceptions of self and death s…
Relational Trajectories: A Personal Construct Contribution
The interdisciplinary study of relationships has begun to frame several issues important for advancing an understanding of interpersonal processes. This article addresses the contribution to this effort that can be made by personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955) and its related methodology. In particular we argue that construct theory can help illuminate (1) the complex interconnectedness between the self and its social context, (2) the multiple …
Personal Constructs in Relationship Deterioration: A Longitudinal Study
The position that friendship formation involves partners in developing a common understanding of social reality was tested in a controlled study of acquaintance over a 20-week period. Individuals from two mixed-sex groups engaged in a series of regulated discussions once weekly for approximately an hour each time. They also completed repertory grids and attraction ratings after the 4th and 18th weeks of acquaintance. Results indicated that deteri…
Cognitive structure and death anxiety
One goal of thanatology is to study the idiosyncratic belief systems that individuals have regarding the meaning of death. Although more recent multidimensional scales for assessing death anxiety represent an improvement over earlier global scales, both are limited in their ability to measure subtle structural properties of such belief systems. The present paper investigated the feasibility of studying personal meanings of death through the use o…
The threat hypothesis: A conceptual and empirical defense
A detailed rebuttal of Chambers' critique of the death threat literature is presented. Close examination of Chambers' argument reveals that his position is grounded in an incomplete understanding of both personal construct theory and other cognitive theories, and fails to consider the substantial empirical literature demonstrating the validity of the Threat Index, Moreover, the results of a preliminary study conducted to test his assertions yield…
Optimizing Scientific Validity: Toward an Interdisciplinary Science Studies
In his lead article for this series, Campbell discusses the role of a "disputatious and mutually reinforcing community of truth seekers" in promoting a sociology of scientific validity. Situating his work in the broader context of the sociology of science, we first raise a number of questions about the conceptual and empirical warrant for his recommendations, local factors that might affect their implementation, and temporal and "level of analysi…
A preliminary factor structure for the threat index
In response to recent concerns about the multidimensionality of presumedly unidimensional death anxiety scales, we employed state-of-the-art factor analytic procedures to explore the factor structure of the Threat Index (TI). A heterogeneous sample of respondents completed 407 TIs, which were submitted to the LISREL VI program in an attempt to identify a clearly interpretable model of the dimension or dimensions assessed by the instrument. Althou…
Similarity and Attraction: A Longitudinal Study
Although it is generally acknowledged that psychological similarity influences the development of same-sex friendship, empirical studies often fail to delineate the differential impact of attitude, personality, value, construct and structural similarity as predictors of attraction. The present naturalistic study examines the discriminability of these similarity subtypes, and notes the impact of each upon friendship formation over 8 weeks of assig…
Clinical Outcome of Group Therapies for Depression
Assessing personal meanings of death: Empirical refinements in the threat index
Over the past decade, researchers have shown increasing concern with the psychometric soundness of instruments devised to measure death attitudes. This paper reviews data on the development, validation, revision, and extension of the Threat Index, a widely used measure of the threat implied by one's personal death. In addition, the paper discusses two new research directions deriving from the Threat Index literature; these research directions enh…
Psychotherapy for the treatment of depression: A comprehensive review of controlled outcome research
Previous quantitative reviews of research on the efficacy of psychotherapy for depression have included only a subset of the available research or limited their focus to a single outcome measure. The present review offers a more comprehensive quantitative integration of this literature. Using studies that compared psychotherapy with either no treatment or another form of treatment, this article assesses (a) the overall effectiveness of psychother…
Psychotherapy for the treatment of depression: A comprehensive review of controlled outcome research
Sex differences in death anxiety: Testing the emotional expressiveness hypothesis
Several researchers have reported sex differences in death anxiety, but such differences have not been systematically investigated. This study attempts to test the generality of elevated death anxiety of women in a heterogeneous, racially mixed adult sample (h = 117). Moreover, we tested the viability of one explanation of this apparent gender difference. We statistically controlled for potential sex differences in self-disclosure or “social desi…
Reactions of beginning counselors to situations involving death and dying
It has commonly been assumed by thanatologists that client problems centering on death and dying are particularly demanding and difficult for the mental health professional. The present study tested this assumption by asking 81 beginning counselors to rate their degree of comfort with 15 counseling scenarios, 5 of which involved death or loss (e.g., terminal illness, suicide, AIDS, grief) and 10 of which concerned other focal issues (e.g., rape, …
Death studies: A prospective view
A confirmatory factor analysis of the Threat Index
Death concern and attitudes toward the elderly in nursing home personnel
The present project investigated the relationship between death fear and threat, attitudes toward the elderly, and personal anxiety toward one's own aging in a group of 145 nursing home employees and a matched comparison group of 130 individuals who worked in non-death related occupations. Contrary to predictions, nursing home personnel did not have higher levels of death threat when compared to controls; in fact, control group subjects had highe…
Cognitive predictors of suicide risk among hospitalized psychiatric patients: A prospective study
This prospective study examined the utility of several cognitive variables as predictors of suicide risk among 79 hospitalized psychiatric patients. These variables included pessimism (measured by the Hopelessness Scale), perceived and actual problem-solving ability (indexed by the Problem-Solving Inventory and Means-End Problem-Solving test, respectively), and polarized thinking, self-negativity, and construct system constriction and differentia…
Personal meanings of death: A content analysis of free-response narratives
Despite the proliferation of research on death attitudes, relatively little attention has been paid to idiosyncratic meanings of death, as opposed to the large volume of work on death anxiety using standardized measures. This study applied a reliable coding system to narrative descriptions of the meaning of death contributed by 504 respondents. Content analysis of these free-form responses suggested that constructions of death differed significan…
Psychology (146 works) · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health (124 works) · Psychotherapist (99 works) · Grief (82 works) · Clinical Psychology (71 works) · Social Psychology (69 works) · Psychiatry (63 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (61 works) · Medicine (58 works) · Clinical Psychology (49 works)