Speaking the Unspeakable: Reclaiming Grief and Loss in Family Life

Despite their core place in family life, grief and loss have received only sporadic attention in the family therapy literature. In examining this neglect we briefly revisit earlier family therapy understandings of grief and loss in families, and present a theoretical framework (drawing on Worden, 1982; Walsh & McGoldrick, 1991) that comfortably integrates a wide range of family grief experiences including death and more ambiguous losses.