By Tracey Brant COOP, PCC
Organizational Ombuds - Dartmouth College

She had been reassigned from a committee. That was the issue, at least on paper. But fifteen minutes into our conversation, I could feel something larger moving beneath her words.

The organizational impact seemed modest - someone else would step into her role and the committee’s work would continue. Yet her voice was sharp, her sentences quick. She kept returning to the same details, circling back to moments I thought we already explored. I clarified the issue. We talked through possible responses. Still, the conversation looped.

I noticed my own quiet confusion. Her reaction felt larger than the reassignment alone would suggest.

Finally, I offered a gentle reflection: “It sounds like something meaningful shifted for you when this happened.”

She paused and became still. Then she said quietly, “I think it’s that I no longer feel trusted.”

There it was. What had been constraining movement wasn’t the committee change itself. It was a loss of status, a disruption in identity. Once named - carefully, simply - the heaviness lifted just enough for her to help begin to move the conversation forward.

I didn’t process grief with her, assign meaning or interpret her experience. I just acknowledged what was already present in the room. Loss.

That moment stayed with me. And over time, I began noticing a pattern.

The Pattern That Kept Appearing

It wasn’t always committee reassignments. Sometimes it was a leadership change. Sometimes a restructuring, a role shift, a policy update. The surface issues varied widely. But there were these quiet signals I kept encountering:

Someone would pause mid-sentence, searching for words. A story would repeat with small variations. The emotional intensity would feel disproportionate to what had happened. Or a visitor would return multiple times to discuss the same concern, and despite thoughtful exploration, nothing would move forward.

I started to recognize a particular quality to these moments - a rupture in trust or belonging, a sense that something changed; pain over an expected future that no longer felt available. These weren’t just emotional reactions. They were responses to losses of meaning as much as losses of circumstance.

And I realized I was making a quiet, internal decision in each of these conversations: whether to acknowledge what I was sensing, or to hold back.

Sometimes naming the loss expanded the visitor’s options. Sometimes restraint better served the work. The question was always the same:

When does loss matter enough to name in an Ombuds conversation?

What I Started Calling the Threshold

Over time, I began thinking of this decision point as a threshold - a moment when I sense that an unnamed loss, not the surface issue, is what’s constraining movement. I call it the Loss Recognition Threshold™, or LRT™ for short.

But, it’s not a technique I use with visitors. It’s not a model I explain. Rather, it is an internal, reflective framework that helps me decide: Will acknowledging this loss restore dignity and expand choice? Or will it redirect the conversation away from what the visitor came here to do?

The LRT™ is silent, internal, non-diagnostic. It’s grounded in Ombuds principles of neutrality, confidentiality, informality, and independence. And at its core, it’s oriented toward restoring agency.

Most Ombuds conversations move through layers. We start with the issue. We attend to emotion. And sometimes - not always - we reach a place where meaning and loss become relevant. When that happens, discernment matters most.

What It Looks Like in Practice

I remember a faculty member who came to see me after a leadership change in his department. He kept contrasting how his role used to feel with how it felt now. Before, I felt…After that… The before-and-after structure ran through the entire conversation.

He wasn’t yet focused on solving a task-based problem. He was describing what no longer felt available to him grounded in one moment in time. I could sense him trying to articulate something he hadn’t quite named yet.

I reflected to him: “There may be a sense of loss underneath what you’re describing - even if we don’t define it precisely.”

He exhaled. “Yes, he said. I didn’t realize how much that mattered to me.”

Acknowledging the disruption reduced his defensiveness. It allowed the conversation to move forward. I didn’t process his grief or assign interpretation. I just named already seemed to be shaping the interaction.

Another time, a staff member came back to see me for the third time about the same workplace concern. Each session had been thoughtful. We’d explored the issue thoroughly. But nothing had shifted, and the tone remained heavy.

I began to suspect the issue itself was no longer the barrier. Something deeper was keeping things stuck.

I said, “It seems like something important changed here, and it hasn’t fully been acknowledged yet. Is that right?”

They became quiet. Then they shared sadness over an expected career path that no longer felt possible. The loss of the possibility of what might have been if…

I didn’t interpret or analyze. Simply acknowledging that they’d lost something allowed them to reconnect with their own agency and begin thinking about the future.

The Questions I Ask Myself

When I sense that a conversation might be approaching this threshold, I pause and ask myself three questions:

Is the intensity disproportionate to the surface issue?

Is there a before-and-after narrative suggesting a shift in meaning or identity?

Is the conversation looping or stuck despite skilled Ombuds interventions?

If one or more of these indicators is present, I consider that loss has likely crossed a threshold where gentle acknowledgment might restore movement.

This isn’t a test. It’s not a diagnosis. It is a professional judgment call informed by what’s being observing in real time.

What Naming Loss Is and What It Isn’t

I want to be very clear about boundaries here, because this matters deeply to me. And to the Ombuds profession.

When I acknowledge loss in an Ombuds conversation, I’m not counseling or engaging in therapy. I’m not diagnosing emotional states. I’m not processing grief, probing personal history, or directing outcomes.

What I am doing is acknowledging a disruption in meaning. I’m recognizing dignity in the visitor’s lived experience, validating that their reaction makes sense given what they’ve chosen to share, and hopefully expanding their sense of choice and agency.

This aligns with what Ombuds do: we reflect what is already present, without fixing, rescuing, or prescribing.

The language I use is simple and tentative. I might say “It sounds like something meaningful shifted here” or “There may be a sense of loss underneath” or sometimes I say, “That reaction makes sense given what you’ve shared with me” or “We don’t need to define it precisely to acknowledge it.” And, adding “Is that right?” or “Am I getting that right?” can be helpful to understanding.

The goal isn’t precision. It’s permission.

When I Choose Restraint

Just as important as knowing when to name loss is knowing when not to.

If the intensity is proportional to the surface issue, I don’t look for loss. If the visitor is clearly task-focused and moving forward, I don’t redirect. If naming loss would pull the conversation away from the visitor’s stated goals, I hold back from inviting loss into the conversation. If there’s no evidence of meaning disruption or looping, I trust the process we’re already in.

Restraint, in this sense is ethical discipline, not avoidance.

Not every difficult conversation involves loss, and not every expression of emotion calls for it to be acknowledged. The professional question is always:

Does acknowledging this serve the visitor’s agency, or does it serve my own need to name what I’m observing?

Discernment requires both courage and restraint.

What I’ve Noticed When It Works

When I acknowledge loss at the right moment and correctly, I often observe subtle but meaningful shifts in the conversation. There’s increased clarity. Emotional intensity softens. The visitor gains access to options they couldn’t see before. Trust deepens. Movement resumes.

I’ve come to understand that unacknowledged loss tends to narrow perspective and constrain choice. Naming it carefully - proportionately - creates space for meaning, agency, and forward motion.

Loss and joy are not opposites. When loss is held with dignity rather than avoidance, possibility re-emerges.

A Practice of Noticing

The Loss Recognition Threshold™ is a practice of noticing - a way to structure my own reflection when a conversation feels heavy, stuck, or larger than the issue at hand.

It helps me ask:

Has loss crossed the threshold where acknowledgment restores movement?

Sometimes, naming what has shifted is enough to allow the next step to appear.

About the Author

Tracey Brant is an organizational Ombuds at Dartmouth College, where she practices is alignment with the International Ombuds Association’s principles of practice. This article reflects one area of her professional inquiry: how meaning, loss, and identity shifts shape Ombuds conversations - and how discernment in acknowledging them can restore movement. Tracey can be found on LinkedIn, or through [email protected]