Not all losses are obvious and many losses don’t have a funeral. We call this ambiguous loss, a term coined by Dr Pauline Boss.

We might lose someone to dementia, physically present but emotionally absent, or the ambiguous loss of a loved one lost to mental illness or substance abuse.

When loss isn’t acknowledged or validated we are often left to grieve alone, a grief that is disenfranchised (Doka).

Ambiguous loss is experienced by families whose loved ones have gone missing, perhaps a drowning where no body has ever been found, or lost to war, presumed dead.

When loss is ambiguous, the grieving process becomes a complex problem to be navigated; do I grieve or hope? How can I learn to both grieve and hope?

Ambiguous loss asks something very difficult for any person, it asks us to live without resolution, to carry uncertainty indefinitely. I was glad to contribute in a small way to this article on Ambiguous loss.

If you’d like to learn more about the many ways that Ambiguous loss may present in life, there is an interview with Dr Pauline Boss on the Shapes of Grief training programme, available at www.shapesofgrief.com

ambiguous loss