The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change

by Pauline Boss

Overview

How do we begin to cope with loss that cannot be resolved?

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even anger. In this book, pioneering therapist Pauline Boss identifies these vague feelings of distress as caused by ambiguous loss, losses that remain unclear and hard to pin down, and thus have no closure. Collectively the world is grieving as the pandemic continues to change our everyday lives.

With a loss of trust in the world as a safe place, a loss of certainty about health care, education, employment, lingering anxieties plague many of us, even as parts of the world are opening back up again. Yet after so much loss, our search must be for a sense of meaning, and not something as elusive and impossible as "closure."

This book provides many strategies for coping: encouraging us to increase our tolerance of ambiguity and acknowledging our resilience as we express a normal grief, and still look to the future with hope and possibility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324016816
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/14/2021
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	407,044
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Pauline Boss, PhD, is emeritus professor at University of Minnesota. She is known worldwide for developing the theory of ambiguous loss and as a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of family stress management. Dr. Boss is the author of Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss and The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Preface xv

Part 1 What Just Happened?

Chapter 1 Ambiguous Loss 3

Chapter 2 The Myth of Closure 17

Chapter 3 Racism as Unresolved Loss 27

Part 2 Staying Strong and Resilient

Chapter 4 Resilience: Our Best Hope in the Face of Ambiguous Loss 39

Chapter 5 The Paradox of Absence and Presence 49

Chapter 6 Both/And Thinking 59

Chapter 7 Six Guidelines for the Resilience to Live With Loss 69

Chapter 8 If Not Closure, What's Normal Grief? 89

Chapter 9 Loss and Change 105

Afterword 117

Notes 121

References 135

Index 163

Editorial Reviews

"This book is packed with observation and stories, and imbued with understanding, compassion, wisdom and permission to be human. I unreservedly recommend it to anyone who is not quite knowing where they find themselves after the events of the past two years."

Therapy Today

"[A]n inspired and much-needed framework for living through the pandemic.... [A] beautiful melding of Boss' 80+ years of personal experience with life and loss with her 40+ years of professional work as a family therapist, professor, clinician, and grief expert."

Coalition News

"Timely, well written, organized, and presented.... [O]f special value and enduring interest to professionals and non-specialist general readers alike."

Midwest Book Review

"Of all the books and articles that Pauline Boss has written devoted to her pioneering work on ambiguous loss, this publication may be her finest. The book is timely and exactly what so many of us desperately need as we try to comprehend, adjust to, and gradually bounce back from the devastating losses that so many of us have experienced as we live amid a global pandemic. I am convinced that this book will provide a much-needed compass to those who feel directionless following the loss of loved ones during the pandemic, and for whom ‘proper closure’ was not humanly possible due to COVID-related constraints. One of the most refreshing and welcomed features of this masterfully written book centers around Boss’s expansion of her previous groundbreaking work on ambiguous loss to include a critical examination of global issues such as climate change and racism. If there were ever a time where a book, with such a sharp focus was needed, one that speaks honestly, authoritatively, and eloquently to where we are as a nation and a world, it is now."

Kenneth V. Hardy

"From her own professional and personal experience, Boss offers us lessons in dealing with ambiguous loss. She writes beautifully and with great emotion as she tackles one of our most difficult challenges—how to grow through pain and suffering. Boss is a cultural therapist whose work helps us understand ourselves and each other."

Mary Pipher

"As we deal with the ambiguous losses we are experiencing in the pandemic, Boss reminds us that while grief is a lifelong journey, we still have opportunities both to build resilience and grow from loss—even those losses that are unclear. The key to coping with ambiguous loss is “both/and” thinking—accepting the loss as well as recognizing that things are still here. What we have lost is gone, but we continue to retain an emotional and spiritual bond with it. As Boss notes, this is a most important insight as we live through this pandemic. Her work is a is a tour de force that unites her earlier writings on loss, trauma, and resilience and it is a hopeful message to all of us who struggle to make sense of today’s world."

Kenneth J Doka

06/01/2021

An expert in the areas of trauma therapy, grief, and family stress—in March alone, she was featured in the Atlantic (We Have To Grieve Our Last Good Days) and the New York Times (Mom Is Really Different: Nursing Homes Reopen to Joy and Grief)—Boss here addresses the free-floating anxiety, upset, and anger we feel amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She calls it ambiguous loss, as we aren't sure what's missing even as we fret about our families, our jobs, and our futures, and she has advice for coping.

Library Journal