Credit: Noam Schneck/Columbia Engineering
FIGURE 6
A control process (i.e. selective attention) is used by avoidant grievers to block mental representations (i.e. thoughts of the deceased loved one) from entering consciousness (yellow section). When this is happening, avoidant grievers are suppressing (yellow section). This suppression likely exhausts energy and ultimately leads to the mental representations breaking through attempted control and reaching consciousness (red section). Contrasting avoidant grievers those with a less avoidant style simply focus on what is in front of them without trying to monitor their internal mental state as much (blue section).