Perhaps the most direct theoretical link between such early psychological trauma as the loss of one’s parents and subsequent physical illness can be drawn from the fact that adult psychopathology itself leads to serious problems in interpersonal relationships. And, as already noted, almost all psychiatrists believe such problems stem from early childhood. Those people who are unable to form close personal ties in adulthood would likely appear in the mortality charts and be overrepresented in the single and divorced categories. Evidence supporting this idea can be gleaned from several sources. During the past two decades there has been a strong relationship between early parental loss and the subsequent development of various physical diseases. For example, when we examined the relationship between separation and depression and the development of physical disease (such as cardiovascular disease), we found that a significant number of adult patients in the hospital with physical disease had suffered the early loss of one or both parents. Confronted again as adults with some new loss or the threat of such a loss, these patients tended to become very depressed and developed various physical disease, including cardiac disorders.

There were 16 patients listed under “rejection” and had lost one or both parents through separation, not including that by death, or had one or more demanding parents or had many siblings so that the patient felt unaccepted, unwanted, and at a distance from the parents. Nine patients were still grieving or again grieving over a significant loss which had occurred 3 to 32 years prior to the onset of the current symptoms. Thus 33 out 42 patients were preoccupied, or because of the nature of the current changes in object relations, became preoccupied with past conflicts never completely resolved. There is a possibility that there are early psychological antecedents of malignant neoplasm (a new and abnormal growth of tissue in some part of the body, especially as a characteristic of cancer) has gradually been introduced into medical thinking as the result of detailed retrospective studies. Dr. Phillippe’s hypothesis concerning the emotional life history patter associated with neoplastic disease is that early in life, damage done to the child’s developing ability to relate to others, resulting in marked feelings of isolation, a sense that intense and meaningful relationships bring pain and rejection, and a sense of deep hopelessness and despair. Later, a meaningful relationship is formed in which the individual invests a great deal of energy. For a time, people enjoy a sense of acceptance by others and a meaningful life, although the feeling of loneliness never is completely dispelled. Finally, with the loss of the central relationship, whether the death of a spouse, forced career retirement, or children leaving home, comes a sense of utter despair and a conviction that life holds nothing more for them.

Again comparing these suicide cases with a large number of randomly selected 40,000 students, 225 former students committed suicide in the years following graduation. These students came from homes where parents were college trained, where the father had a professional statue (frequently a physician), parents were separated, or the father died early. Other distinguishing characteristics were exactly the same as for death by coronary heart disease: heavy cigarette smoking, nonparticipation in extracurricular sports, secretiveness, and social isolation. Furthermore, lack of participation in extra-curricular activities seems to acquire meaning in loneliness, fear, hostility or frustration. Wealth or success of the father may have an adverse influence on the son through parental absence, deprivation of companionship and counsel, overbearing demand for emulation, possible lack of interest or lack of need for individual success or effort in the son. Also, early parental death might signify some hereditary weakness or environmental trait transferable to the child in the form of a predisposition to heart disease.