The loss that does not cause growth can lead to psychopathology

Objective: In the broadest sense, grief is the process that contains emotional, intellectual, and behavioral responses to any loss. Almost all theorists agree that grief is a recovery process and if not proceeding properly, it can result in psychopathology. At this point, it can be argued that grieving is a required capacity and this capacity is inversely related to the development of psychopathology. One of the most important implications of this capacity is psychological growth. In the literature, there has been a number of studies about posttraumatic growth. Individual development and positive re-evaluation of life seen after the loss can be considered as an important reflection of the capacity of mourning viability. In this study, we hypothesized that growth after the loss is lower in subjects with psychopathology than in those without psychopathology

Methods: Forty-seven patients with chronic renal failure on dialysis and 49 patients with major depressive disorder who experienced a loss were included into the study. The control group consisted of 49 healthy volunteers. Posttraumatic growth and Problem Solving Inventory scales were applied to the participants involved to the study. The score on the posttraumatic growth scale as dependent variable, groups and gender as independent variables and age, education, time from the loss (monthly) and the problem solving inventory scale score as covariate were analyzed with analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).

Results: Statistically significant differences between the groups were found (p‹0,001). The lowest posttraumatic growth scale score was found in the major depressive disorder group. Statistically significant differences between the Major depressive disorder group and two other groups were identified. Significant difference in posttraumatic growth scale scores between dialysis and control groups was not detected. In addition, it has been observed that problem solving style may have an effect on the PTG score if the study group were enhanced.

Conclusion: This result suggests that the capacity of individual growth associated with mourning may be lower in individuals who have developed a psychopathology.