Category
Three-Minute Thesis
Description
Grief after losing an abusive, neglectful, or chronically toxic family member is a clinically understudied and commonly invalidated form of grief. Most grief frameworks are built upon attachment and normative constructs of loss, centering feelings of longing, sadness, and wanting to be with the deceased again (Bowlby, 1980; Worden, 2018). When survivors lose someone who has caused them harm through words, emotions, or physical pain, their grief response can include feelings of relief, numbness, guilt, anger, loss of identity, and other complex emotions which do not align with mainstream grief expectations and are often invalidated by cultural norms and family members. This conceptualization paper will present a trauma informed, attachment-based, constructivist lens through which we can view grief after experiencing relational harm. Utilizing ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 2016), constructivist approaches to finding meaning in grief and loss (Neimeyer, 2019), as well as literature on complex trauma (Herman, 1992; van der Kolk, 2014), grief after experiencing abuse can be viewed through a lens of meaning-making disrupted by unfinished attachment injuries and compounded by prior traumatic events. This paper will discuss how common grief models do not adequately apply to disenfranchised, ambiguous, and trauma-related grief and offer suggestions for new integrative frameworks which can allow clinicians to better normalize their clients’ grief responses without pathologizing them. Clinical implications will be discussed specifically related to counselor training, supervision, and ethical considerations such as spiritual bypassing, cultural myths about grief, and countertransference. References to CACREP (2024) standards including trauma, multicultural counseling, and advocacy competencies will be included. Suggestions for future research will include developing ethical frameworks for training counselors to support clients grieving abuse.
Reconceptualizing Grief Following the Death of Abusive or Toxic Family Members: A Trauma-Informed Theoretical Framework
Three-Minute Thesis
Grief after losing an abusive, neglectful, or chronically toxic family member is a clinically understudied and commonly invalidated form of grief. Most grief frameworks are built upon attachment and normative constructs of loss, centering feelings of longing, sadness, and wanting to be with the deceased again (Bowlby, 1980; Worden, 2018). When survivors lose someone who has caused them harm through words, emotions, or physical pain, their grief response can include feelings of relief, numbness, guilt, anger, loss of identity, and other complex emotions which do not align with mainstream grief expectations and are often invalidated by cultural norms and family members. This conceptualization paper will present a trauma informed, attachment-based, constructivist lens through which we can view grief after experiencing relational harm. Utilizing ambiguous loss theory (Boss, 2016), constructivist approaches to finding meaning in grief and loss (Neimeyer, 2019), as well as literature on complex trauma (Herman, 1992; van der Kolk, 2014), grief after experiencing abuse can be viewed through a lens of meaning-making disrupted by unfinished attachment injuries and compounded by prior traumatic events. This paper will discuss how common grief models do not adequately apply to disenfranchised, ambiguous, and trauma-related grief and offer suggestions for new integrative frameworks which can allow clinicians to better normalize their clients’ grief responses without pathologizing them. Clinical implications will be discussed specifically related to counselor training, supervision, and ethical considerations such as spiritual bypassing, cultural myths about grief, and countertransference. References to CACREP (2024) standards including trauma, multicultural counseling, and advocacy competencies will be included. Suggestions for future research will include developing ethical frameworks for training counselors to support clients grieving abuse.
