Ambiguous Grief
An under-recognized and very stressful type of grief is ambiguous grief. Ambiguous loss is where there is no verification of death or another kind of closure to the loss. There are many scenarios that may result in ambiguous loss. Ambiguous grief may result when a soldier doesn’t come home from war and his body has not been found. Another incident could be a tsunami or earthquake where there is no body to be found. Another type of ambiguous loss is the psychological impact of loss such as parents’ divorcing or couples breaking up because of infidelity. How do we deal with that type of loss? Support groups especially designed to support those in the grip of ambiguous loss can be very helpful. (Bentz, 2006; Thorngren, 2006)