Pauline Boss

Pauline Boss, Ph.D., was an American psychotherapist and professor emerita with Swiss roots. She taught at the University of Minnesota and worked at Harvard Medical School and other universities. Boss coined the term “ambiguous loss,” describing situations in which a loss remains unclear or cannot be conclusively established. She published two books on the subject and conducted research on stress reduction in families. She also trained the International Red Cross task force for a mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.