Closure from ambiguous loss is a harmful misnomer. What’s needed is resilience
to live in meaningful ways with no closure. – Pauline Boss PhD.
In the 1970s, Pauline Boss, PhD, began developing her theory of ambiguous loss which she
brought to the lay public in 1999 in Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief.
Ambiguous loss is an “unclear loss with unanswered questions.” Such loss can be physical or
psychological, catastrophic or commonplace. In her recent book, The Myth of Closure:
Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change (2022), Dr. Boss expounds on ambiguous
loss on all levels, from the individual to the world stage. She proposes that generational effects
of racism might be understood more fully though the lens of ambiguous loss. Across cultures
and contexts, Dr. Boss has found that reaching closure is a myth, and a harmful one at that.
Rather, the aspiration is resilience: to learn to live with no closure, to recognize grief as a
natural response, to find meaning in the loss, and to go on to live a good life.
Connect with Dr. Boss:
- https://www.ambiguousloss.com
- The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. WW Norton,
2022. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324016816
Connect with Dr. Boss:
- https://www.ambiguousloss.com
- The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. WW Norton,
2022. https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324016816
