It was Dr Rob Gordon who said that ‘words are the digestive juices of the mind’. And like with any unique trauma, healing begins when you realise you’re not alone.

When your loved one is missing, it feels like no one else on the planet could possibly understand what you’re going through; the constant ruminating and complex emotions that interrupt your days and nights. It’s an experience that feels impossible to describe.

Deepening feelings of isolation, very few mental health workers are equipped to support families and friends of missing people, because ambiguous loss is different to standard grief.

Since 2020, we’ve been training counsellors in this unique type of grief these past few years, and the support they’ve given our families – we’re told – has been life-changing. But many people, even generally, simply aren’t inclined to seek traditional methods of therapy.

With internationally-renowned ambiguous loss expert Dr Sarah Wayland, we set out to create a tangible therapeutic tool that people can use, in the comfort and privacy of their own homes – or to complement traditional counselling – to navigate the unending not-knowing, and that oscillation between hopefullness and hopelessness.