Ambiguous Loss Resource Hub

Welcome to the Ambiguous Loss Resource Hub

Not all grief is tied to death. This space is designed to support individuals and families navigating non-death losses—those that are often invisible, ongoing, or hard to define. Whether you’re coping with estrangement, incarceration, familial substance misuse, dementia, mental illness, divorce, immigration-related separation, losses connected to foster care or adoption, or the emotional toll of chronic illness, this hub offers tools, guidance, and connection to help you feel seen, supported, and less alone.

Ambiguous loss lacks society’s established grief scripts. There are no funerals for divorce, no memorials for mental illness, no obituaries for estrangement. When loss is ongoing or undefined, individuals face their sorrow without the cultural containers that help structure mourning, leaving them to navigate uncharted emotional territory often alone.

Giving this experience a name (“ambiguous loss”) is powerful because:

• It validates the pain: It acknowledges that the grief is real, even if others can’t always “see” the loss.
• It reduces isolation: Families and youth realize they’re not alone in their feelings.
• It provides tools/a framework: Naming it helps people access targeted resources (like those below) and strategies to cope.

Without this recognition, grief may manifest as anxiety, anger, or shame, especially in youth, who might blame themselves or struggle to articulate their emotions.

Grief takes many forms. We’re here to honor yours.

Articles:

• POV: How Parents Can Help Their Children Deal with Ambiguous Loss
• What’s Your Grief
• Grieving Someone Who is Still Alive
• Understanding Anger and Grief in Children
• Facing Ambiguous Loss
• A Grief Note on Ambiguous Loss
• Helping Kids cope with Ambiguous Grief
• When facing loss, embrace change and don’t force closure, a therapist urges
• What Can I Do with the Confusing Grief I Feel
• Grieving the Living: When the Person You Love No Longer Exists
• The National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement Guidelines for Supporting Ambiguous Loss
• Learning to Live with Ambiguous Loss and Unresolved Grief
• Supporting Clients through Ambiguous Loss and Grief: Strategies for Healthcare Workers

Books for Caregivers/Service Providers:

• Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss
• The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change by Pauline Boss
• Soulbroken: A Guidebook for your Journey through Ambiguous Grief by Stephanie Sarazin **
• Healing Through Ambiguous Loss: A Guided Workbook for Building Resilience & Finding Peace by Christina Heppenstall
• Even in the Grief: Poems on Ambiguous Loss by Sarah J Carter **
• Grief in the Margins by Michelle Williams **

Books for Youth Impacted by Ambiguous Loss:

• Books for Youth Impacted by Divorce
• Books for Youth Impacted by Immigration
• Books for Youth Impacted by Dementia/Alzheimer’s
• Books for Youth Impacted by Chronic Illness/Mental Health
• Books for Youth in Adoptive or Foster Families

Guidebook:

• Eluna’s Caregiver Guidebook includes supportive insights & interactive activities to accompany caregivers through the waves of grief & loss. With a personal tone, the Guidebook welcomes & walks alongside caregivers with the guiding principle, “How do we grieve together as a family?”

Podcasts:

• “Ambiguous Grief” – The Brain People Podcast
• Ambiguous Loss and Grief – CALLING HOME
• Navigating Loss without Closure – On Being w/ Krista Tippett
• Ambiguous grief with Stephanie Sarazin
• Ambiguous Loss and how it relates to military children
• Podcast Series on Ambiguous Loss from MHPSS
• Between Presence & Absence: Conversation on Ambiguous Grief – What’s Your Grief

Videos:

• Helping Children Cope with Ambiguous Loss and Ongoing Uncertainty
• How I’ve come to understand ambiguous loss by Sojo Ethridge
• When Grieving Does’t End: Estrangement
• Parental Incarceration and the Stress of Ambiguous Loss for Youth
• Ambiguous loss and the myth of closure with Pauline Boss, PhD
• Crime, Incarceration, and Grief: Understanding, Self Care and Caring for Others
• Anticipatory & Ambiguous Grief: How to Grieve the Loss of the Living and Unknown Future

Activities:

• Grief Puzzle
• Guided Imagery
• Stepping In & Out of Grief
• Grief Journaling
• Story Writing
• Art with Heart: A non-profit that creates therapeutic art & writing books to cope with overwhelming feelings. We recommend DRAW IT OUT for elementary & INK ABOUT IT for middle/high school.

Apps:

• Apps for Grieving Kids
• Apps for Grieving Adults

**Eluna is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and a percentage of your purchase will generate a commission to directly support The Eluna Resource Center.

Please contact us if you have any favorites that we are missing.