Transgenerational Attachment Wounds: The Healing of Ambiguous Loss

The topic for this thesis grew out of the author's curiosity about a mother--daughter relationship affected by multigenerational consequences of ambiguous loss, separation anxiety, and attachment wounds caused by paternal absence and lack of maternal emotional availability. Utilizing heuristic methodology the author examines the attachment wound and how restoration of the mother--daughter relationship can affect the healing of the mother. The findings include insight into the author's own coping with and healing of separation anxiety and ambiguous loss. In conclusion, the author offers a view that the nuclear family, although providing the building blocks of psychological life, should not be considered the end product, but rather a continually evolving framework--- a journey, rather than a destination.