ABSTRACT
WILLIAM RAY LEACH. Ambiguous Loss and Parental Traumatic Brain Injury
(Under the direction of DR. DREW POLLY)
Parental traumatic brain injury (PTBI) and the effect it has on adolescents living in the home has been mostly avoided in the current literature. Even more rare in the literature is the idea of ambiguous loss, coined by Boss (1991). An ambiguous loss refers to a loss of someone who has not died, but who is also not the same person as before the injury, physically or mentally. Consequently, the loss is unclear and requires constant recalibration by the uninjured family members to accept their ever-changing injured family member. Together, no researcher has ever studied ambiguous loss as it relates to PTBI.
This study focused on three research questions:
Research Question 1: As it pertains to PTBI, what is the influence of ambiguous loss when experienced during adolescence?
Research Question 2: When PTBI is experienced in adolescence, how does the perception of ambiguous loss result in tangible consequences later in life?
Research Question 3: In what ways do adolescents experiencing ambiguous loss from PTBI describe their family, self, and situation?
Using a qualitative approach, this phenomenological dissertation found that ambiguous loss affects adolescents in different ways and at different times after the injury has occurred. Ambiguous loss can also result in tangible consequences later in their life. The time since the injury can affect the severity of feelings of ambiguous loss, however, this study also found that PTBI adolescents can exhibit traits of resilience through their experience.