A SOULFLO Therapy Guide
Ambiguous Grief — Grieving Something That Isn't Death
Curated by SOULFLO Therapy — to ease the struggle of finding the right fit.
This content is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading this does not establish a client-therapist relationship. If any of this resonates, we encourage you to reach out for a consultation to discuss your specific situation.
What Is Ambiguous Grief?
Ambiguous grief is loss without a clear ending — grief for something (or someone) still present in some form, or absent without the closure a death provides. Unlike grief after a death, there's often no ritual, no community acknowledgment, and no clear "moment" marking the loss, which can make it especially isolating.
What This Looks Like Day to Day
- Grieving a parent or family member you're estranged from, who is alive but unreachable in the way you need them to be.
- Grieving the version of your family or culture you left behind after immigrating, even while building a full life elsewhere.
- Grieving a relationship that ended without explanation or closure.
- Grieving an identity or life you expected to have — a career path, a fertility journey, a version of yourself before an illness or diagnosis.
- Feeling like you don't have the "right" to grieve, because nothing died, so the loss feels invalid or exaggerated to name out loud.
- Cycling between grief and hope, especially in situations that technically could still resolve (an estranged relationship, an unresolved diagnosis).
Why It's Different From Grief After a Death
Death-related grief, while devastating, often comes with clear social scripts — people know how to respond, rituals exist, and there's a defined endpoint. Ambiguous grief usually has none of that. The loss can be minimized by others ("but they're still alive," "you can always go back"), which often leaves the person carrying it with less support and more self-doubt about whether their grief is even valid.
How Therapy Can Help
Therapy offers a space to name and validate a loss that the world around you may not fully recognize. This often includes making sense of the lack of closure, processing complicated feelings (love alongside relief, grief alongside hope), and finding ways to carry the loss without needing it to resolve neatly first.
Meet Your Therapist
Which of Our Therapists Specializes in This?
Karen Xie, AMFT
Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Works with grief (adjustment and bereavement) alongside multicultural and immigration-related identity.
James Bui, ASW
Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker
Holds space for caregiver grief, identity grief, and career grief — losses tied to roles, responsibility, and who you were becoming.
Nancy Phung-Smith, LMFT
Founder & Clinical Supervisor
Leads therapy intensives for grief in deeper spaces, where loss needs extended, uninterrupted time to be fully met.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. It's a well-established concept in grief and family therapy literature, describing loss that lacks clear resolution or social acknowledgment.
Your Grief Is Valid, Even Without Closure
A loss doesn't need a ritual or an ending to be real. Therapy can be a place where your grief is fully acknowledged — exactly as it is.