The Unknown Soldier; Brain injuries and unresolved grief (UTNE)

brief, but interesting overview -

The Unknown Soldier
Brain injuries and unresolved grief

—By Joseph Hart, Utne Reader
Utne Reader July / August 2007 Issue


Brain injury is the signature wound of the Iraq conflict.
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"Ambiguity immobilizes people," Pauline Boss says. "Closure is a myth."

Boss, the author of Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Harvard University Press, 2000) and Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss (Norton, 2006), also trained the professionals who worked with the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, according to 'On Wisconsin' (Spring 2007). But the psychological construct of ambiguous loss applies to any number of circumstances, including ill children, parents with dementia, and mothers who put their children up for adoption.
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Families who learn to grasp this living, breathing contradiction gain a particular strength and resilience--one that counteracts the type of black-and-white thinking that got us into the war in the first place. "We live in a culture that trades in absolutes and certainties, and maybe it helps us to get things done. But much of life is in the gray area," Boss says. "Life is full of paradoxes."


http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/promo/12624-1.html