Attachment injury is a significant relational wound that occurs when an attachment figure fails to provide expected care, comfort, protection, or responsiveness at a critical moment of need. Such experiences can disrupt trust and attachment security and influence how a person experiences closeness and relies on others in relationships. 

Examples:

• A parent who was physically present but emotionally unavailable

• Repeated experiences of being dismissed, ignored, criticized, or misunderstood by a caregiver

• A caregiver who could not provide protection when you were frightened, hurt, or vulnerable

• Betrayal by someone you trusted to care for you

• A significant rupture in a marriage or other intimate relationship

• Discovering that someone you depended on was not emotionally or relationally safe

• Repeated experiences of having your needs minimized or treated as burdensome

• Growing up feeling responsible for managing a caregiver's emotions

• Experiencing rejection, abandonment, or withdrawal during moments when you most needed connection

• Losing trust in a relationship after a significant betrayal

• Grieving the relationship you needed or hoped for but never had

• Trying to make sense of why someone who was supposed to love or protect you could not—or would not—show up for you

Ambiguous loss is a form of loss in which there is no clear resolution or certainty about whether someone or something is truly gone. It can occur when a person is physically absent but psychologically present, or physically present but psychologically absent. Because the loss lacks clear boundaries or closure, it can complicate the grieving process and make it difficult to know how to understand, respond to, or adapt to the loss. 

Examples:

• Estrangement from a family member

• Divorce or separation

• A loved one living with addiction or severe mental illness

• A parent who is physically present but emotionally unavailable

• Caring for someone whose personality has changed because of dementia or brain injury

• A deployed or incarcerated loved one whose presence in your life is profoundly altered

Bereavement is the state or period of experiencing the death of someone with whom a person had a significant relationship. It encompasses the circumstances and lived experience of adapting to the death, while grief refers more specifically to the emotional, cognitive, physical, social, and spiritual responses to that loss. 

Examples:

• The death of a spouse or partner

• Losing a parent, child, sibling, grandparent, or other family member

• The death of a close friend

• Losing someone who played an important role in your life, even if you were not related

• Grieving the death of someone after a long illness

• Coping with a sudden or unexpected death

• Grieving a death after a complicated or estranged relationship

• Adjusting to life after the death of someone who was part of your daily routines and sense of home

• Mourning the loss of a relationship, role, or future that changed with someone's death

Disenfranchised grief is grief that is not fully recognized, socially supported, or openly acknowledged because a loss, relationship, or grieving person is not given the legitimacy or support typically associated with grief. This can occur when the relationship is unrecognized, the loss is not socially acknowledged, or others minimize or stigmatize the person’s grief. 

Examples:

• Grieving the loss of a relationship others did not understand

• The death of someone from whom you were estranged

• Miscarriage or reproductive loss

• Grief following the loss of a beloved animal

• Losing a vocation, community, or identity that others do not recognize as a “real” loss

• Grieving a relationship that was harmful or complicated

The distress that can arise when we participate in, witness, experience, or feel betrayed by actions or systems that violate deeply held moral commitments, values, or responsibilities.

Examples:

• Acting in a way that violated your own conscience or values, even when you felt you had no good alternatives

• Witnessing harm or injustice that you felt powerless to prevent

• Being ordered, pressured, or expected to participate in something you believed was wrong

• Experiencing betrayal by a person, institution, community, or authority you trusted to uphold what was right

• Carrying guilt or shame for something that was not fully within your control

• Being blamed or scapegoated for harm you did not cause

• Struggling with anger, grief, or disillusionment after discovering that an institution or community did not live according to the values it taught

• Experiencing conflict between loyalty to a group and loyalty to your own conscience

• Becoming caught in relational or group dynamics in which blame is displaced onto another person in order to preserve a sense of innocence or belonging

• Finding yourself questioning who you are, what you believe, or whether goodness, trust, justice, or meaning can still be found after a profound moral rupture

The lasting effects of prolonged or repeated trauma, particularly when it occurs in relationships or circumstances that are difficult to escape.

Examples:

• Growing up with chronic abuse, neglect, or emotional invalidation

• Living for years in an environment where you had to remain constantly alert to danger or another person's reactions

• Experiencing repeated relational betrayal, coercion, or control

• Long-term exposure to domestic violence, exploitation, or other forms of interpersonal trauma

• Repeated childhood experiences of having your needs ignored, punished, or treated as unsafe to express

• Experiencing trauma within a family, religious community, institution, or other relationship where belonging or safety depended on compliance

• Carrying a persistent sense of shame, guilt, worthlessness, or responsibility for things that were not yours to carry

• Struggling to trust yourself or others after prolonged experiences of manipulation, betrayal, or unpredictability

• Feeling disconnected from your identity, relationships, or sense of future after years of adapting to survive

• Finding that old survival patterns continue to shape relationships, emotions, boundaries, or your sense of safety long after the original circumstances have changed

Grief that becomes particularly difficult to navigate because of the circumstances of the loss, the relationship with the person who died, or other emotional and relational factors. The term is often used broadly to describe grief that feels stuck, especially when other experiences make mourning more complicated.

Examples:

• Grieving a relationship that was deeply important but also painful or conflicted

• Experiencing intense guilt, anger, regret, or unresolved questions following a death

• Struggling to reconcile conflicting feelings about someone who died

• Losing someone with whom you had an attachment injury or complicated relationship

• Experiencing grief alongside trauma, depression, anxiety, or other significant difficulties

• Feeling unable to make sense of the circumstances surrounding the death

• Finding that the loss has reopened earlier experiences of abandonment, betrayal, or other unresolved grief

• Feeling caught between wanting to hold onto the relationship and wanting relief from the pain associated with it

Grief that remains persistently intense and causes significant distress or impairment well beyond the period when it would ordinarily be expected to lessen, particularly when accompanied by persistent yearning, preoccupation with the deceased, difficulty accepting the death, or difficulty reengaging with life.

Examples:

• Persistent, intense yearning for the person who died

• Feeling preoccupied with the deceased or circumstances of the death for an extended period

• Experiencing profound difficulty accepting that the person has died

• Feeling as though part of yourself died with the person

• Avoiding reminders of the death or, conversely, feeling unable to stop seeking connection with the deceased

• Having significant difficulty returning to relationships, activities, responsibilities, or a meaningful sense of life

• Feeling that moving forward would mean abandoning or betraying the person who died

• Continuing to experience substantial impairment in daily life because of the loss