Ambiguous Loss and Complicated Grief: Understanding the Grief of Parents of the Disappeared in Northern Uganda

Abstract

AbstractIn the bereavement literature, prolonged grief, described in the new DSM‐5 as persistent complex bereavement disorder, is considered a pathological disorder affecting a small but significant minority of bereaved persons. In the ambiguous loss literature, in contrast, prolonged grief is viewed as inevitably linked to the ambiguity of the bereaved person, and its causes are linked to the ambiguity, such as persistent hope, the absence of cultural and religious rituals to provide meaning to a loss, and the grief being so large as to disenfranchise community members. Based on a literature review and qualitative fieldwork with parents of missing persons in Uganda, this article examines the emotional, social, cultural, and socioeconomic aspects of the ambiguity that relatives of missing persons experience in the aftermath of wartime disappearances. I argue that, in such contexts, explanations of prolonged grief as a pathological disorder cannot be sustained.