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Objective: To determine which aspects of divorced parents' ongoing relationships with their former spouses were associated with children's and youth's postdivorce well‐being. Background: Research on the associations between former spousal relationships and children's postdivorce well‐being has focused extensively on postdivorce coparenting, with less emphasis on other aspects of these multidimensional relationships. Method: Divorced parents (N = 641), recruited via Amazon MTurk, reported on six aspects of their relationships with their former spouses (coparenting cooperation, general communication with former spouses, boundary ambiguity, how often they talk with their former spouses, and satisfaction with custody and child support), and three indices of postdivorce child well‐being (prosocial, internalizing, and externalizing behavior). Results: Analyses were conducted separately for children (4‐ to 9‐years‐old) and youth (10‐ to 18‐years‐old). For children, coparenting cooperation was associated with more prosocial but less internalizing behavior; general communication and boundary ambiguity—family system were associated with greater externalizing and internalizing behavior. For youth, boundary ambiguity—family system was associated with more externalizing and internalizing behavior, boundary ambiguity—relationship with former spouse was associated with more externalizing behavior, child support satisfaction was associated with more prosocial behavior, and custody satisfaction was associated with less internalizing behavior. Conclusion: For child and youth postdivorce well‐being, some aspects of former spousal relationships appear more impactful than others, with boundary ambiguity appearing particularly detrimental. Implications: Divorce education programs may need to diversify their content, supplementing the common focus on postdivorce coparenting with resources that help parents reduce boundary ambiguity in the family system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore family boundary ambiguity in the parent–child relationships of transgender youth. Background: Transgender youth may perceive a lack of clarity about whether parents will accept their authentic gender expression, continue to support them physically and emotionally, and regard them as a member of the family. Uncertainty about being in or out of the family and whether family relationships endure is stressful and can lead to psychological distress, a sense of ambiguous loss, and frozen grief. Method: Ethnographic content analysis was conducted based on interviews with 90 transgender youth recruited from community centers in 10 regions across 3 countries. Results: Narratives revealed that transgender youth experienced family boundary ambiguity related to relational ambiguity, structural ambiguity, and identity ambiguity. Each experience of ambiguity obscured whether participants remained in the family and interpersonally connected to their parents. Conclusion: Transgender youth actively navigated complex and ambiguous parent–child relationships whereby participants attempted to reconcile their need for authentic gender expression combined with their need for family connectedness and acceptance. Implications: Family clinicians, educators, and policymakers are urged to consider family and transgender resilience through a lens of ambiguous loss and to promote a gender‐affirmative life‐span approach to clinical care for transgender individuals and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although more than 2 million service members have experienced deployment since 2001, predictors of postdeployment family functioning remain unclear. Utilizing the Contextual Model of Family Stress (Boss, 2002), this study examined military-related factors (e.g., rank, component, combat exposure, postdeployment time at home, cumulative length of deployments), boundary ambiguity, and family- and deployment-related ambivalence as predictors of family functioning during reintegration. Service members ( N = 228) from multiple branches of the U.S. military participated in a national survey related to family relationships and support programming. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that service members from lower ranks, who were home for longer periods of time, and who endorsed higher degrees of boundary ambiguity and family-related ambivalence reported poorer family functioning. Results emphasize the relevance of boundary ambiguity and family-related ambivalence to the reintegration process and can inform prevention and intervention efforts that promote family well-being in the military population during the critical postdeployment period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of leaving an abusive partner has been theorized using the Stages of Change Model. Although useful, this model does not account for changes in relational boundaries unique to the process of leaving. Using family stress and feminist perspectives, this study sought to integrate boundary ambiguity into the Stages of Change Model. Boundary ambiguity is defined as a perception of uncertainty as to who is in or out of a family system (Boss & Greenberg, 1984). Twenty-five mothers who had temporarily or permanently left their abusers were interviewed. Data were analyzed using constructivist grounded theory methods. Results identify types, indicators of, and mothers' responses to boundary ambiguity throughout the five stages of change. Most mothers and abusers fluctuated between physical and psychological presence and absence over multiple separations. The integration of boundary ambiguity into the Stages of Change Model highlights the process of leaving an abusive partner as systemic, fluid, and nonlinear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study tests a novel latent construct reflecting psychological absence and examines its relations with maternal depression, mother-toddler interactions, and toddlers' social-emotional outcomes in a low-income sample ( N = 2,632). Structural equation modeling confirmed a psychological absence construct and revealed that psychological absence, measured at the child's 36-month birthday-related assessment, is a significant predictor of children's social-emotional development at 36 months, mediated by mother-child interaction. Results are interpreted within a boundary ambiguity framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguous loss has become a standard theory for understanding the impact of situations where the presence of a family member is subject to ambiguity. A number of studies of ambiguous loss have been made in a range of situations of ambiguity, but almost all have been firmly located within a Western cultural context. Here, ambiguous loss is explored in a different cultural context through a study of the families of persons disappeared during Nepal's decade-long Maoist insurgency. Through the use of qualitative research methods, a sample of families ( n = 160) of those disappeared during the conflict has been studied to understand the impact of disappearance. The results of this study are compared with the expectations of ambiguous loss theory to test its relevance in the Nepali context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguous loss and boundary ambiguity experienced by families during the process of placing their child in out-of-home care was described by parents in 20 families raising a child with severe or profound developmental disabilities. In retrospective interviews, parents discussed their experiences before and after placing their child and how they experienced ambiguous loss as they raised a child that was psychologically absent but physically present. Parents faced ambiguities related to the nature and diagnosis of the disability, support services, and placement. A second situation of ambiguous loss was created when the child was placed. Parents experienced two forms of boundary ambiguity (role and membership ambiguity) and ambivalence regarding placement decisions. Research and clinical implications for working with families are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article integrates theory and research related to boundary ambiguity in parents of children with a chronic health condition. We propose that boundary ambiguity is a risk factor for psychological distress in these parents. Clinical applications and a case example highlight how boundary ambiguity can be assessed and managed in clinical settings by professionals working with parents with chronically ill children. Questions are provided for assessing boundary ambiguity in clinical and research settings, and implications for research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research represents an exploration of patterns of boundary ambiguity among poor, young, unmarried men and their reproductive partners. Interviews were conducted with men and their partners during the third trimester of pregnancy. Interviews focused on patterns of men’s physical and psychological presence in relationships with their partners and in activities associated with pregnancy and prenatal care. Patterns of presence among fathers-to-be are identified and factors associated with those patterns are explored. Patterns of presence reflect degrees of physical and psychological presence in relation to pregnancy and the father role. These patterns reflect the influence of various social and emotional dimensions that impact a man’s transition to the new father role and raise a number of policy and practice issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its introduction 30 years ago, family boundary ambiguity (BA) has been a widely used construct in family stress research and clinical intervention. In this article, we present a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of published research studies that have used BA as a primary variable. Our review identified 37 studies investigating BA in 11 topical domains of research (e.g., missing-in-action families, death, divorce, stepfamilies, illness and caregiving, clergy families). We identify theoretical advancements pertaining to the construct and the methods used to measure BA in these studies. Drawing from this review, we discuss the current state of BA scholarship and identify steps that need to be taken to advance BA research in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains an overview of three decades of research, theory development, and clinical application about ambiguous loss. Although the work includes both physical and psychological types of ambiguous loss, the focus is the aftermath of 9/11 (September 11, 2001), when the World Trade Center collapsed following terrorist attacks. On the basis of her previous work, the author was asked to design an intervention for families of the missing. She reflects on what she learned from this unexpected test and presents new propositions and hypotheses to stimulate further research and theory that is more inclusive of diversity. She suggests that scholars should focus more on universal family experience. Ambiguous loss is just one example. Encouraging researchers and practitioners to collaborate in theory development, she concludes that research-based theory is essential to inform interventions in unexpected times of terror, and in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secondary analysis of interviews with 163 birthmothers revealed that the adopted child remains psychologically present. Ten indicators of psychological presence were identified. Indicators related to roles were more salient the more open the adoption, and supernatural referents were more salient when a birthmother once had mediated communication but now has none. Degree of psychological presence was highest in fully-disclosed adoptions and lower in ongoing-mediated, confidential, and time-limited-mediated adoptions, respectively. Valence was generally positive, but more so in fully-disclosed adoptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adolescent leaving home is a normative loss for parents but one that remains ambiguous since the adolescent continues to come and go. Seventy rural and urban mid-life couples were studied with responses from both fathers and mothers. The major hypothesis is that the more parents perceive their adolescent as psychologically present in spite of physical absence, the more parents will experience dysfunction. Differences between rural and urban couples were few, but gender differences appeared salient. Professionals may too easily accept the assumption that fathers are not bothered when their children leave home. This preliminary study has clarified hypotheses for further testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]