The Psychology of Loss as a Lens to a Positive Psychology

Abstract

This article argues for the development of a field concerned with the psychology of loss that is interdisciplinary in nature and focused on people's pervading sense of loss. The psychology of loss may be defined as broader than related fields such as traumatology, thanatology, and stress and coping. It focuses on the perception of major loss deriving from events such as death and divorce but also on this perception in connection with diverse phenomena. An important research topic for this field concerns people's imputed meanings to losses in their lives and their activities of developing stories of losses and confiding those stories to close others as they cope with the losses. This article describes basic principles of loss that may be observed across varied loss events. It is argued that this development of a psychology of loss will contribute invaluable perspective to developments in work on positive psychology.