Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy (DMFT)

Advisor

Christopher Burnett

Abstract

Abstract This study explored the lived experiences of Cypriots who have received the skeletal remains of relatives they never personally met. Employing a qualitative research paradigm, specifically interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), I conducted indepth interviews with 3 participants who have encountered the return of their missing relatives, aiming to delve into their grieving processes. Specifically, the study explored the lived experiences of Cypriots prior to and following the return of their relatives’ skeletal remains. The study utilized Bowen family systems theory to guide my research questionnaire in exploring the family and systems relationships affected by the phenomenon of a missing person returned, by participants who have never met them alive. The objective of this study was to contribute to the literature on complicated bereavement and complicated grief, by analyzing the results in the discussion section through a family systems lens in the context of return. The study utilized Bowen family system concepts, that included multigenerational transmission processes expressed through cut-off, triangles, and family projection process to better understand the relational impact of this unique phenomenon. Keywords: complicated bereavement, complicated grief, ambiguous loss, Bowen family systems, missing and returned, multigenerational transmission, cutoff, family projection process, triangles, societal transmission process

Download
To access this thesis/dissertation you must have a valid nova.edu OR mynsu.nova.edu email address and create an account for NSUWorks.

Free My Thesis

If you are the author of this work and would like to grant permission to make it openly accessible to all, please click the Free My Thesis button.

  Contact Author

Share

COinS