Most people grieving the loss of a loved one will experience a period of intense pain and focusing on the loss lasting around 6 months, which is known as acute grief. Complicated grief (CG) occurs when the experiences of acute grief extend well past 6-months post-loss. Thoughts and feelings about the loss (i.e. grief processing) occurring during acute grief may play a role in healthy grieving and protect against CG development. Identification of the cognitive and emotional mechanisms of grief processing that contribute to healthy grief resolution would advance knowledge of the goals of grieving and assist the development of interventions for complicated grief. Two core components of grief processing are top-down regulation and balanced loss confrontation. Top-down pursue related emotional representations and recruit proportion regulation is the ability to suppress processing of intrusive emotional information to a stated goal. Top-down regulation may facilitate healthy grieving by allowing reprieve from intense loss thinking. Balanced loss confrontation refers to the processing of the loss in a way that protects against overload. Confrontation with the l oss may assist in the process of reforming one's mental of the deceased. This tudy will test extrinsic and intrinsic measures of top-down regulation balanced loss confrontation during acute grieving as predictors of CG development a year later We will a sample at high-risk for CG, the suicide-bereaved, in order to maximize the likeliness that a significant of the sample develops CG. The s . findings produced by this study may advance the knowledge of how CG develops, assist in the identification of people at high-risk for developing CG and potentially form the basis for targeted interventions. The following K23 presents a research and training program that will support the applicant on the path of becoming an independent investigator of the role of grief processing in the development of complicated grief. The research mentorship, coursework, hands-on experience, seminars and classes ingrained in this training and plan will propel the applicant to independence in the domains of1) Clinical Research, 2) Psychometric Assessment of Grief Processing, 3) Machine Learning analysis of fMRI, 4) Biostatistics, 5) Scientific Independence. team independent and The combination of the environment, t raining plan, research strategy and mentorship will not only provide the candidate with a spectrum of new methods and skills that will establish him as an research scientist, but will also produce a body of knowledge that will clarify the specific cognitive emotional grief processes that contribute to the development of CG.
Complicated grief describes an inability to adjust to the loss of a loved one over the course of the first year following the death. This study will identify cognitive, emotional and neural processes occurring in the early grieving period (3 to 5-months post-loss) that predict or protect against the development of complicated grief a year later in suicide bereaved subjects, a sample at high-risk for developing complicated grief. These findings may advance understanding of the process of grief, facilitate early identification of high-risk grievers and potentially form the basis for targeted treatment of complicated grief.
