Trauma and Ambiguous Loss: The Lingering Presence of the Physically Absent

Spirituality, Humor, and Resilience After Natural and Technological Disasters

“…The present findings and their interpretation should be considered in light of at least three methodological limitations of this study. First, the sample size is small and therefore may not be representative, so broad generalizations based on the present findings are not warranted; however, other literature has documented the protective role of spirituality on resilience in international populations (see Boss & Ishii, ).…”

The Context and Process of Theory Development: The Story of Ambiguous Loss

“…Cross‐culturally, the answers vary, and often surprise. Recently, I learned that many families who survived the earthquake and tsunami of 2011 in Japan find comfort in the belief that their ancestors are looking after their missing loved ones (Boss & Ishii, ). Once again, I was reminded that the psychological family manifests itself differently across cultures.…”

“…Second, we found in Japan, as we did with 9/11 families in New York (Boss, Beaulieu, Wieling, Turner, & LaCruz, ) that, in addition to professionals, community leaders and paraprofessionals could also understand and apply the theory of ambiguous loss. After the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan, I have been training (first directly and now via Skype) family therapists, social workers, nurses, and psychologists, who then train local family helpers from the Fukushima region (Boss & Ishii, ). For example, a Japanese psychiatrist and a family therapist translated Boss () to bring its stress‐based approach to the tsunami area (see Boss, ).…”

How International Research on Parenting Advances Understanding of Child Development

“…The situation with international refugees, who now exceed 60 million worldwide , illustrates these complexities: In characterizing refugee populations, one could refer to their country of origin or country of destination, but many do not know if the country of destination is permanent . In addition, many children and parents are separated, leading to a sense of ambiguous loss and adding further complexity to characterizing families as belonging to one country or another. In this way, culture may not be equated with country , and immigration (along with other factors related to ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion, region, and the like) distributes many cultural groups throughout a given country.…”