Basically, it is this feeling of having lost a loved one, but without certainty, which prevents mourning the deceased and mourning, summarizes the American psychologist Pauline Boss, of the University of Minnesota. The expert who developed this concept from ” ambiguous loss ” in the 1970s, grant an interview about it at Scientific American, in the context of the tragedy recently occurred in Florida.
It is a painful situation, but “surprisingly frequent”, notes the magazine: whether it is after the collapse of a building, or after a natural disaster, or after the disappearance of a person … And it happens even when the death is indeed confirmed, but that we could not see the body, as the pandemic itself has often reminded us: the confinements have prevented many people from saying goodbye to their parents, or from organize religious or family rituals (read on this subject The unbearable pandemic mourning).
“It’s the most difficult type of loss, according to Pauline Boss, because it’s made more complicated by not knowing… It’s in a gray area. And that can lead to depressions and “immobilization of the whole day-to-day process — going to work and that sort of thing.” “
Boss, whose next book takes advantage of the pandemic to criticize the idea that mourning must absolutely end with the equivalent of a door that is closed behind you (The Myth of Closure) is also the author of Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Harvard University Press, 2000).
The important thing is to leave time, she reminds the Scientific American. « The research shows that punishment does not have to end and that setting a time limit can do harm. “
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