ysical or mental safety and uncertainty of possession, routine or physical existence.
- Identity – events that compromise how we and others view the self, involving stigma, belonging or physical deterioration.
We believe that how a life event impacts on these four underlying areas is more important than its category, whether, for example, it’s exam failure, mugging, financial loss or relationship break-up. And within these key areas there are important features that increase the likely damage to wellbeing. One is the degree of impact – from mild to marked levels depending on intensity, threat, finality and change involved. For example, an event threatening attachment can be on a continuum from ‘hassle’ (minor argument with partner) to serious negative event (major row), to life-changing (threatened divorce) or trauma (violent attack).
How does this model fit with previous work? Studies have illustrated that other features typify events that are highest on severity and provoke depressions. These include loss (with more or less finality) and danger (threat of future loss), entrapment/defeat (the event underlines lack of escape from a punishing situation) and humiliation (the event is stigmatising) (Brown et al., 1995; Kendler et al., 2003; Harkness & Monroe 2016). So let’s now turn to some examples of how the dimensions of loss, danger, entrapment, humiliation and impact can act to increase negativity in our four key areas of psychological need.
Think of an individual having fertility treatment and the needs that might be affected by this – identity (as parent) and perhaps achievement (i.e. not being able to reach the goal of having a baby). An unsuccessful round of IVF would be considered to have aspects of immediate loss but still contain some hope – the next treatment might be successful. Compare this with being told that after many years of entrapping failed fertility treatments there is nothing left to try. Here, there is a sense of final loss and futility.
Another example, paralysis following a stroke, could involve features of loss, danger and entrapment. This may also affect identity (self as functioning agent). On a closer analysis security may be affected if the person gives up their job and earning capacity, and attachment may be affected if it leads to deterioration in a close relationship due to caring responsibilities or hospitalisation.
So on a simplistic level a person could experience loss in attachment (bereavement), achievement (failing a key exam), security (eviction) or identity (confirmation of infertility).
Yet the most damaging events are those that hit at a number of areas of our core functioning. They have an impact on the very meaning of our lives.
We believe that the conceptual model developed helps explains not only why intuitively negative events are seen as such (death, divorce, destitution), but also why lesser events under certain conditions are so negative. Breaking a finger or wrist might seem inconvenient, painful but relatively minor. But if it stops the individual doing their job, performing their parenting role or having contact with close others, it may involve greater hardship. Suppose the breakage was due to an attack – either from someone close or randomly in the street – this would have greater impact on felt security and the belief in a benign world. Events can also escalate: the individual may be told they will never recover full mobility in their hand and then lose not only functioning but also their livelihood and future goals. Conversely, such context also points to the availability of ‘safety nets’ or available resources that reduce negativity (e.g. another household wage earner cushioning the impact of job loss or parenting demands).
The average reader might be finding it hard to believe that this is still an issue, in a science that has arguably moved consistently from nomothetic to idiographic understanding. We can assure you that it is. We believe it’s hampering research, for example producing inconsistent results in genetic studies that often still use a checklist appr