‘Ambiguous loss’ is the unique form of grief the loved ones of missing persons experience, considered by many psychologists the most traumatic type of loss. Isolating, open-ended and painfully hard to describe and process, it impacts millions across the world. The hardest part for many is how alone and voiceless they feel, due to the lack of familiar language for what they are going through, and the sense of isolation that surrounds it.

Our brief was to help transform the experience for the better – to help empower those experiencing ambiguous loss to find words for their own unique pain and know that they are not alone.

The Hope Narratives is a world-first system of modular language designed to help the loved ones of missing people navigate the unique form of grief known as ‘ambiguous loss’. Over 100 hours of recorded audio and over 500 responses to written surveys generated more than 500 collective years of lived experience, which we crafted into 145 pieces of modular language. These connect to become over 1.4 million possible Hope Narratives. By selecting and sequencing the language, users create therapeutic sentences that describe their pain, a way of coping, and a hopeful outlook.

Rather than create work ‘about’ the challenges of living with ambiguous loss, we set out to create a powerful too ‘for’ it. From a strategic point of view, this aligned with MPAN’s move away from focussing on finding missing persons, towards helping support and empower those left behind. Our primary audience was this community. Their courage, resilience and strength provided the materials from which this project is made. Their needs and challenges defined the form it took. From outset to completion, they defined our strategic imperative: helping to reshape the psychological experience of ambiguous loss for the better.

The Hope Narratives distill 500 collective years of experience into 145 modular statements, which connect to become over 1.4 million Hope Narratives. The language is based on a modular sentence structure: hard truth 1 > hard truth 2 > coping behavior > hope. Each is distilled from the life experiences of the loved ones of missing people and crafted to work as an interchangeable unit. By sequencing the language, users create therapeutic sentences to describe their pain, a way of coping, and a hopeful outlook.

To achieve this, we took the spoken and written words of participants across eight countries, crafted them to work as grammatical components of the overall sentence (while honoring their cadence and intent), then tested and adjusted the emotional and grammatical functionality of the resulting language until our team of experts felt confident it was both true to the experience of ambiguous loss, and therapeutically useful.

The Hope Narratives is a poetry of lived experience that can be assembled and reassembled to piece together the multiplicity of feelings that define Ambiguous Loss.

To date, The Hope Narratives has earned 22 million in reach, over 170 pieces of media coverage, and has generated an 800% increase in searches for Ambiguous Loss, shifting how Australians see the issue. Ambiguous Loss expert Dr. Sarah Wayland has called The Hope Narratives ‘a revolutionary gift’. Channel Ten News called it a ‘world-first therapeutic tool.’ The project has been translated into six languages and is currently being digitised to make it accessible to even more communities.