Loss and Recovery

Relationships whose loss triggers grief are termed "relationships of attachment." These relationships are pair-bond relationships, parental attachments to children, transference relationships to helpers, and persisting childlike attachments to parents. Because these relationships share significant characteristics, it is proposed that they are developments of a single socio-emotional system—the attachment system of children. This point of view permits a unified treatment of a number of topics, including the threats that elicit attachment emotions and behaviors, the impact of loss, the nature and course of recovery from loss, impediments to recovery, and the forms taken by failures to recover.