TY  - JOUR
A1  - Huang, Manxia
A1  - Habermas, Tilmann
T1  - Narrating ambiguous loss: deficiencies in narrative processing and negative appraisal of consequences
T2  - Journal of clinical psychology
N2  - Objective: To compare narrative coping with physical and psychological ambiguous loss (AL) and definite loss in terms of distancing (vs. narrative immersion), meaning-making, and subjective biographical consequences.
Methods: Thirty adults who had lost a parent to death, to going missing, or to Alzheimer disease (N = 90, 67 females; mean age 36.73 years, SD = 7.27; mean time since loss 9.0 years) narrated two loss-related and three control memories.
Results: Individuals with AL were not more immersed in the loss experience, but less successful in finding meaning and in evaluating the loss and its consequences positively compared to those with a definite loss. These group differences were not due to differences in depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and protracted grief.
Conclusions: Ambiguity of loss renders meaning-making and coherently narrating loss more difficult, leading to more negative affect, suggesting interventions that help narrating loss coherently in a self-accepting way.
KW  - ambiguous loss
KW  - autobiographical reasoning
KW  - grief
KW  - meaning-making
KW  - narrative
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/62099
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-620998
SN  - 1097-4679
N1  - The Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan). Grant Number: CUG2106119
VL  - 2021
IS  - online version of record before inclusion in an issue
SP  - 1
EP  - 20
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Bognor Regis [u.a.]
ER  -