Estrangement as Ambiguous Loss

My interview with Pauline Boss

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

“Ambiguous loss” is a term coined by psychologist and family therapist, Pauline Boss. It describes grieving over people or experiences that don’t have a clear definition or source of ritual.

Estrangement is a perfect example.

As I write in Rules of Estrangement “I don’t fault any particular therapist, friend, or family member for their bad counsel, because estrangement—unlike most of the terrible things that can happen to us—is still a largely closeted problem. Estrangement doesn’t benefit from the surfeit of books, articles, and web pages that show up for more common problems like marriage, divorce, or depression.”

In other words, if someone dies or divorces you, everyone feels sorry for you. If your kid estranges you, everyone blames you." Estrangement is ambiguous because there aren’t clear rituals both to mark it and to work our ways through it when it occurs.

I wanted to interview Pauline to get her thoughts on this topic. Her book, which I highly recommend is Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (it was featured along with mine in a recent NYT’s article about books researchers recommend the most often about estrangement).

I also recommend her more recent book: The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change.

I think the concept of “the myth of closure” is also important since so many estranged parents are advised to “just move on” when doing so is an almost impossible task.

The podcast is available to paid subscribers. If you can’t afford the $7 a month let me know and I’ll comp it for you.

Talk soon!

Josh