The document focuses on supporting families of missing persons, particularly addressing the concept of ambiguous loss, which is characterized by a lack of closure and understanding regarding the absence of a loved one. It outlines the emotional impact of missing persons on families, the unique challenges posed by ambiguous loss, and the need for tailored support frameworks to help families cope. Additionally, it provides guidelines for resilience and practical steps for facilitators to assist families in navigating their grief and uncertainty.

1. Ambiguous Loss:
Supporting Families with Missing Loved Ones
(Missing Persons)
For: Grief Support Facilitator Workshop Training,
BFO South Central Region
Presented by: Maureen Trask
On: March 6, 2021
March 6, 2021 1

2. Topics
 Explore “Missing”
 Ambiguous Loss and Family Needs
 Support Frameworks and Your Role
 Recap and Q & A
March 6, 2021 2

3. 3
Daniel Trask
Missing Nov. 3, 2011 Found May 24, 2015

4. Explore “Missing”
4
I will facilitate conversation to explore “Missing” and
identify the existing gaps and issues.
What is a Missing Person?
(Definition)
Who goes Missing?
Where are the Missing?
When are they Found?
Why do they go Missing?
How many go Missing?
March 6, 2021

5. Stats - Patterns in the Data*
* Source data as reported on Canada’s Missing (Public Website), under Publications www.canadasmissing.ca
5
A-Adult C-Children
Year
Age
Grp
Ontario
#
Ontario
Total
Canada
#
Canada
Total
Ontario
%
Canada
%
2015 A 6,513 19,413 26,080 71,368 34% 37%
C 12,900 45,288 66% 63%
2016 A 6,717 18,465 27,789 73,398 36% 38%
C 11,748 45,609 64% 62%
2017 A 7,035 18,060 30,632 77,800 39% 39%
C 11,025 47,168 61% 61%
2018 A 7,497 17,686 31,387 73,620 42% 43%
C 10,189 42,233 58% 57%
2019 A 8,082 17,849 32,752 73,177 45% 45%
C 9,767 40,425 55% 55%
5 Yr Avg A 7,169 18,294 29,728 73,873 39% 40%
C 11,126 44,145 61% 60%
March 6, 2021

6. A Poem by Tom M. Brown
6
When Someone You Love Goes Missing
https://wenswritings.wordpress.com/when-someone-you-loves-goes-missing-by-tom-m-brown/

7. What is Ambiguous Loss?
7
March 6, 2021

8. Ambiguous Loss Explained
Dr. Pauline Boss, principal theorist of the concept of Ambiguous Loss
and Dr. Gloria Horsley, founder and president of Open to Hope
Foundation, discuss Ambiguous Loss at the annual Association of Death
Education and Counseling (ADEC) Conference, 2011.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2vYyefAgZ0
March 6, 2021 8

9. Ambiguous Loss Recap
 Unclear Loss
 Senseless Loss
 Traumatic Loss
 Externally Caused
 Lacks Closure / Understanding
 Frozen Grief / Being Stuck in Limbo
 A Unique Individual Journey
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10. Types of Ambiguous Loss
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1. Physically Absent-
Psychologically Present
2. Psychologically Absent-
Physically Present
 Adoption
 Migration
 Miscarriage and stillborn loss
 Missing people
 Natural disaster and
catastrophic tragedy
 Addictions
 Dementia and Alzheimer’s
 Mental health issues
 Separation/Divorce
 Traumatic brain injury or coma
 There is no verification of death.
 There is no certainty that the person will come back

11. Ambiguous Loss differs
from Traditional Loss
March 6, 2021 2 11
Traditional Loss Ambiguous Loss
Some knowledge and understanding
from society and western culture
Lack of knowledge about what
ambiguous loss is and its effects
Some services/supports available-
grief counsellors/professionals
Tremendous lack of services and
supports – lack of professionals that
specialize or educated on this
Seen as “normal” because everyone at
some point in their life has a loved one
that dies
Seen as “not normal”, “complicated
grief”, and not affecting the mass
majority
Spiritual/belief teachings exist that
speak to death and mourning
No spiritual/belief teachings discuss
ambiguous loss

12. Ambiguous Loss differs from
Traditional Loss continued
March 6, 2021 12
Traditional Loss Ambiguous Loss
Mourn the loss after the death Cannot mourn because no defined
death to mourn
Customary rituals that allow for
closure
Symbolic rituals that ordinarily support
a loss do not exist. (Boss, 1999)
Some tolerance to the loss that results
from a death.
Co-workers, peers, and society are less
likely to tolerate ambiguity.
The loss as a result of a death is
legitimized by society.
Ambiguous loss is not legitimized by
society.
Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous loss: Learning to live with unresolved grief.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

13. Why does it matter?
 Freezes the grief process
 Paralyzes couple and family functioning
 Prevents “closure”
 Families can name it,
“Ambiguous Loss”
 Families need help
 Families need support
March 6, 2021 13

14. How does one learn to
ease the effects?
Guidelines for resiliency while having to live with
ambiguous loss: (Boss, 1999)
1. Find Meaning (look at values, beliefs, traditions)
2. Accept Uncertainty (make 2 opposing ideas into 1)
3. Reconstruct Identity (forced to change roles)
4. Normalize Ambivalence (as the new norm)
5. Revisit Attachment (celebrate the missing and mourn the changes)
6. Discover Hope (look at strengths, making it with the pain)
March 6, 2021 14

15. Manage the Contradictions
Take two opposing ideas, make into one (both/and)
•I am both sad - and still happy
•I am both alone - and still connected
•I am both powerless - and still empowered
•I am both frozen - and still transforming
•I am both doubtful - and still hopeful
•I am both burdened - and still grateful
•My loved one is both gone - and still here
15

16. Needs of Families
•Be heard, believed, and supported
•Be safe and connected, with trust
•Understand the systems and resources
•Know what to expect of self and others
•Minimize the emotional roller coaster
•Take care of self first, find balance
•Cope in healthy ways, reduce stress
•Strive to maintain Hope, build Resiliency
•Access to timely information and resources
16

17. What Families need to Do
•File a Missing Person Report
•Contact family, friends, last know locations
•Handle jurisdiction changes
•Deal with property (Home, Bills, MTO, Medical)
•Manage triggers (Sightings, Remains, Psychics)
•Maintain relationship with Police and searchers
•Live with the ambiguity and uncertainty
•Hopefully, find meaning and hope
March 6, 2021 17

18. AFP Framework:
5 themes for working with
families of missing persons
1. Reanimation: move past “frozen”
2. A celebration so far: respond to loss
3. The trauma timeline: explore the impact
4. A protected place: safe place of pain
5. Opportunities for growth: living with loss
© Commonwealth of Australia 2014 AFP Australian Federal Police,
National Missing Persons Coordination Centre, Project Officer Sarah Wayland
March 6, 2021 18

19. 1. Re-animation
Move past “frozen”
 Help families with their
sense of being frozen
to the time of their loved
one's disappearance.
 Assist families to move
from their sense of
feeling ‘stuck‘.
March 6, 2021 19

20. 2. A celebration so far
Respond to loss
Acknowledge and honour the family's relationship
with the missing person.
Facilitate families to find
an opportunity to respond
to the current loss of
their loved one.
March 6, 2021 20

21. 3. The trauma timeline
Explore the impact
of the disappearance,
as well as the
accumulated traumas,
families may have
faced prior to their
loved one going
missing.
March 6, 2021 21

22. Triggers and Trauma
“Having a missing loved one is the most painful
loss of all.” (Dr. Pauline Boss, 1999)
Triggers can affect the emotional ups and downs:
• News, tips, or new leads
• Items found, but no physical evidence
• Possible sightings or remains found
• Significant dates, events, songs, smells, places, things
• Other Missing Person stories and cases
• Officer or Jurisdiction changes
The *Trauma Timeline is an important aspect
when assessing the implications of the loss.
* Supporting those who are left behind, Australian Federal Police (Sarah Wayland), 2007
22

23. 3. The trauma timeline – example
March 6, 2021 23

24. 4. A protected place
A safe place of pain
Co-construct with families a space where they can
acknowledge the
pain of not knowing
while still finding
ways to live life.
March 6, 2021 24

25. 5. Opportunities for growth
Living with loss
 Explore ways in which families can live
with their loss,
rather than being
consumed by it.
March 6, 2021 25

26. *AFP Updated Support
Framework
Assist people to tolerate the unknown
* Dr.Sarah Wayland and Univ. of New England Research Team , Mar. 4, 2019
26
The Australian Federal Police (AFP)
National Missing Persons Coordination
Centre (NMPCC)

27. First Nations Experiential
Knowledge Circle / Learning Cycle
March 6, 2021 27
Experiencing - Engagement in
"Real life" learning experience
Reflecting - Internalization of the
Experience
Making Meaning - Analysis of the
Experience
Acting - Application of Experience
to other Real Life Situations

28. What to Avoid
Guidance for Facilitators
•Supporting the person from a grief
approach (like a death)
•Focusing on advice or assumed cause
•Assuming every situation is the same
•Asking “How does that make you feel?”
•Thinking newfound Hope remains
•Using the word “Closure”
March 6, 2021 28

29. Support:
Looks different to everyone
March 6, 2021 29
“Someone to really
listen…”
“Being present…”
“Just being there …”
…were by far the most
popular ways to
support someone

30. What you can do as a Support
(Facilitator)
Create and hold a safe space
Educate that grief is “frozen” and is not a linear process
 Encourage to share story, call loved one by name and
educate on importance of this
 Help build strategies to cope with tidal waves of emotion
 Help cope with the tough questions: the ‘why’, ‘what if’
and ‘should have’ from the family
 Help to recognize and build resilience
 Help externalize the loss to release blame and guilt
 Help find meaning in their experience of loss
 Help embrace the paradox and move forward with the
“good enough” (Boss & Carnes, 2012)
March 6, 2021 30

31. What you can do as a Support
(Facilitator) continued
 Listen more and do less
 Empower to see loss in a new way
 Hold multiple truths about the missing person
 Normalize the experience, feelings, and thoughts
 Work collaboratively with the families as equals
 Help build “… a new narrative that is less burdened with
negative attributions, which invoke guilt, shame, remorse,
or desire for retribution” (Boss & Carnes, 2012)
 Use tasks as guidelines
 Focus on the impact of the loss
March 6, 2021
31

32. Living and Learning on my
Ambiguous Loss Journey
• “Loss of a missing loved one is often a lonely and an untrodden path
for each of us who has to walk it.” *
•Can I learn to live with
this loss?
•How do I get answers?
•How do I get support?
•Can VS be that support?
32
* Living in Limbo: Five Years On, Missing People UK, 2013
March 6, 2021

33. Recap and Q & A
 Ambiguous Loss is an uncertain/unclear loss
 Triggers can impact the journey
 I’m not “crazy”, it’s the situation
 Each situation is unique and individual
 Families need support (someone to listen)
 It’s about finding meaning and hope
 “Closure” is a myth, families want answers
Any moments or thoughts? Questions?
March 6, 2021 33

34. From me to each of you:
March 6, 2021 34
Maureen Trask: trasker@rogers.com
Links to the Presentation and Resource Materials will be emailed.
“Thanks”