‘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

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.