A group of psychiatrists have spearheaded a movement to include ongoing grief as a disorder, to be labeled “complicated” or “prolonged grief.” Others have proposed, separately, that a mourner can be labeled clinically depressed only two weeks after the loss of a loved one. The problem with both potential changes is that more people’s grief will be diagnosed as abnormal or extreme, in a culture that already leads mourners to feel they need to just “get over it” and “heal.”In January, more than 10,000 mental health professionals, concerned about the credibility of the science behind several proposed additions to the manual, including the potential addition of complicated grief, have signed a petition calling for an “independent review” of the DSM-5. Their concerns are worth taking seriously. Grief, even the ostensibly extreme variety that the DSM might include, is a universal and normal human reaction to the loss of a loved one. Unlike most disorders in the manual, it is a condition we will all experience. It is not a disease and it has no place in a book dedicated to listing mental disorders. In a culture that has largely turned grief into a private experience rather than a communal one, the decision to include grief in the DSM risks doing more harm than good, making it easier than ever to view those who are simply experiencing a painful rite of passage as abnormal.
Slate (The Grief Cure) The pathologizing of grief — which of course serves primarily to line the pockets of therapists and pharmaceutical companies — is predation upon the vulnerable. It’s just evil, and people who propose it ought to be publicly shamed.