Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief

by Pauline G. Boss

Book Overview

When a loved one dies we mourn our loss. We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer's patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674003810
• ISBN13: 9780674003811
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

No book is going to take away the loss

But this one explains what's going on in a way that makes it easier to take: Oh, that's why I feel so___. Some parts of loss just will not be resolved. The person experiencing the loss has to change his/her attitude toward the loss because the fact of the loss itself isn't going to change. As one who has lost my partner psychologically and physically to brain damage, this book was comforting. It validated my feelings, making me feel I'm not bad to feel abandoned (for instance) because frankly, I am abandoned in a lot of ways. The suggestion for a ceremony to put a period on the loss is intriguing. I felt better after reading it, and want to go back through it again and take notes about thoughts/ideas I'd like to print up and hang where I can see them often and think them over again.

A Brave Step into an area people don't want to acknowledge

I found this book to be wonderful. Ambiguous Loss is a hard subject to tackle and answers are not black and white. Pauline has given me a new insight to kinds of loss different than my own.This book has very inspirational ways to deal with one of the hardest losses a person can face. Since this kind of loss is different for everyone solutions are different for everyone. I feel they are covered. I am recommending this book for everyone I know! A Must Read!

Ambiguous Loss

I didn't even know this sort of grief had a name. Emotions are so confusing. Thank you for this book. I also have used a grief journal, Write from Your Heart, A Healing Grief Journal to help me heal. It helps to write my feelings down.

Answer for my Heart's Loss

Dr. Boss's book landed in my hands quite by accident, at a time when my closest friend moved away. I was devistated, and I was totally unprepared to deal with my emotional and psychological reactions to the situation simply because I didn't understand the reasons for them. Dr. Boss helped me see my grief as natural and normal, and gave me a footing to rebuild on. The stories of immigrants were most affective in my case; but other stories of ambiguous loss situations also helped me to deal with my ex-husband, and with my father's slow death. I have come to realize also all the little ambiguous losses we live with everyday. They are not death; they are part of life.

Extraordinary grace and sensitivity

At one point while I was reading this book, my wife asked me, "How's the book?" I said, "I've had to stop reading and brush away the tears nine times so far."The first several pages of the book constitute one of the finest examples I have ever read of what Aristotle meant by ethos and pathos as powerful elements of rhetoric. Professor Boss masterfully and unpretentiously builds our confidence in her character and credibility from the first paragraph. Then she quickly grabs our hearts and never lets go.The humility with which the author presents her thesis is so utterly refreshing: no pontificating, no posturing, no attacking or discounting beliefs or experiences different from her own.But what touched and gratified me most of all is the extraordinary grace and sensitivity Ms. Boss has achieved in this work. Into and among the facts and conclusions, the science if you will, she has woven powerful, heart-wrenching stories and personal experiences--all of which are further enhanced by her deft references to beloved works of art, literature, poetry and music. What a rich, vibrant tapestry! Or, in light of the warmth, honesty and and lack of self consciousness in her writing, maybe it would more accurate to compare the book to one of her Grandmother Elsbeth's quilts.As I remember, one quote on the jacket said that this is a "healing" book. That may very well be an understatement. And the application is universal. I'm sure my tears came in part from my recognition of several instances of unresolved ambiguous loss in my own life.I am grateful to Pauline Boss for touching my heart deeply, for creating a new awareness in me and for helping me to begin some of my own healing.