- Hardcover: 160 pages
- Publisher: Harvard University Press (25 May 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0674017382
- ISBN-13: 978-0674017382
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.4 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,400,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
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Product Description
Review
You will find yourself thinking about the issues discussed in this book long after you put it down and perhaps wishing you had extra copies for friends and family members who might benefit from knowing that their sorrows are not unique...This book's value lies in its giving a name to a force many of us will confront--sadly, more than once--and providing personal stories based on 20 years of interviews and research.--Pamela Gerhardt "Washington Post "
Product Description
Frozen sadness - what we have when we cannot really know what we have lost. This is what Pauline Boss illuminates, and helps to ease. It could be a loved one still alive yet lost to a person: a soldier son missing in action, or a constantly travelling spouse. In another kind of ambiguous loss, the loved one may be physically present but beyond a person's reach - such as someone with Alzheimer's disease.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I purchased this book after a section of my immediate family moved to Australia. I had become terribly depressed after their departure as I felt a tremendous sense of loss.
This book helped me understand that I was experiencing grief where no death/s had actually taken place but where the sense of loss was no less profound.
Grief is attributed in a number of different circumstances and reading about these helped me to look at ways in which I could better cope and ultimately reach some form of resolution.
This book helped me understand that I was experiencing grief where no death/s had actually taken place but where the sense of loss was no less profound.
Grief is attributed in a number of different circumstances and reading about these helped me to look at ways in which I could better cope and ultimately reach some form of resolution.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
46 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Extraordinary grace and sensitivity
23 July 1999
Format:Hardcover
At one point while I was reading this book, my wife asked me, "How's the book?" I said, "I've had to stop reading and brush away the tears nine times so far."
The first several pages of the book constitute one of the finest examples I have ever read of what Aristotle meant by ethos and pathos as powerful elements of rhetoric. Professor Boss masterfully and unpretentiously builds our confidence in her character and credibility from the first paragraph. Then she quickly grabs our hearts and never lets go.
The humility with which the author presents her thesis is so utterly refreshing: no pontificating, no posturing, no attacking or discounting beliefs or experiences different from her own.
But what touched and gratified me most of all is the extraordinary grace and sensitivity Ms. Boss has achieved in this work. Into and among the facts and conclusions, the science if you will, she has woven powerful, heart-wrenching stories and personal experiences--all of which are further enhanced by her deft references to beloved works of art, literature, poetry and music. What a rich, vibrant tapestry! Or, in light of the warmth, honesty and and lack of self consciousness in her writing, maybe it would more accurate to compare the book to one of her Grandmother Elsbeth's quilts.
As I remember, one quote on the jacket said that this is a "healing" book. That may very well be an understatement. And the application is universal. I'm sure my tears came in part from my recognition of several instances of unresolved ambiguous loss in my own life.
I am grateful to Pauline Boss for touching my heart deeply, for creating a new awareness in me and for helping me to begin some of my own healing.
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Weak on non-illness related ambiguous loss
19 Jan 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Here's how I would rate this book if I had the flexibility to do so: five stars, if you need to prove to someone in your life that there is such a thing as ambiguous loss; three stars if your family is suffering the pyschological loss of a family member through a disease such as Alzheimer's; and two stars if you are trying to name or process any other ambiguous loss, from a parent who disappeared after a divorce to a miscarriage to a friendship that melts away.
Be warned: You will not find in these pages much practical advice for dealing with ambiguous loss. Boss's main goal seems to be convincing other therapists and laypeople that ambiguous loss exists. The one concrete step she advocates is family sessions with one or more therapists in attendance for illness-related losses, mainly Alzheimer's.
In non-illness related loss, the book is weak. Boss skims by the effects of a father or mother disappearing after a divorce; families with a history of cutting off family members; the fading of once-close friendships; loss experienced after the ending of an illicit relationship; or rejection in professional situations. She acknowledges these are losses but not how to approach them as such.
In short, if you as an individual already know you are grieving an ambiguous loss and want specific help in dealing with that, you'll find this book disappointing. You'll do better to purchase books on grief/the grieving process.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Answer for my Heart's Loss
11 April 2000
Format:Hardcover
Dr. Boss's book landed in my hands quite by accident, at a time when my closest friend moved away. I was devistated, and I was totally unprepared to deal with my emotional and psychological reactions to the situation simply because I didn't understand the reasons for them. Dr. Boss helped me see my grief as natural and normal, and gave me a footing to rebuild on. The stories of immigrants were most affective in my case; but other stories of ambiguous loss situations also helped me to deal with my ex-husband, and with my father's slow death. I have come to realize also all the little ambiguous losses we live with everyday. They are not death; they are part of life.
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