‘An all-consuming cumulonimbus of pain’: a scoping review exploring the impact of ambiguous loss when someone is missing and the counselling interventions relevant to the experience

Abstract

2019 marks the twentieth anniversary of the 1999 landmark publication Ambiguous loss: learning to live with unresolved grief by Emeritus Professor Pauline Boss. The book, and its exploration of uncertainty, has invited ambiguous loss into the grief counselling space, as a way to provide specialised care for families and friends of missing people. This scoping review aims to examine the breadth of literature regarding counselling interventions from the previous work of Boss to the present day, as a way to enhance quality of life for people left behind when someone is missing. The literature highlights the experience of trauma relating to complicated mourning, as well as opportunities for post-traumatic growth while people wait for news of their loved ones. The results of the review, and suggestions for future research and therapeutic interventions, demonstrate that families of missing people need specialised support when they access grief counselling. The review demonstrates how counsellors can extend their knowledge of grief interventions and learn to tolerate uncertainty themselves in order to provide support to this important group of individuals post-loss and potentially prior to a confirmed bereavement.

Keywords:

• ambiguous loss
• unresolved loss
• complicated mourning
• missing people

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Missing Persons Coordination Centre, Australian Federal Police, to produce an e-book for counsellors and support providers who engage with families and friends of missing people. In addition, the authors also engaged a sensitivity reader who has lived experience in the loss of a missing loved one, who provided insight into the writing to ensure it represented how to live with loss. This review assisted in the development of the e-book but has not been published elsewhere.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here. https://doi.org/10.1080/02682621.2020.1728089

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Wayland

Myfanwy Maple