Is Prolonged Grief a Disorder?

The American Psychiatric Association added “prolonged grief disorder” to its official diagnostic manual last week, ending more than a decade of argument in the field of mental health.

🤔 Why it’s a big deal: Grief is a universal emotion, and the APA is psychiatry’s most powerful body in the US. Its manual is the standard reference for the field, shaping the treatments and insurance decisions of millions for years into the future.

📜 Background… Since the ‘90s, some researchers have argued that intense forms of grief should be classified as mental illness, saying society tends to accept the suffering of grieving people and fails to steer them toward treatment that could help.

• Research by Dr. Holly G. Prigerson, a psychiatric epidemiologist, has shown that for most people, symptoms of grief peak in the six months after the death.
• But a group of outliers – ~4% of grieving individuals – remain stuck and depressed, struggling with mood, functioning and sleep over the long term. (Many of the articles we read used the example of a grieving widow/widower.)
• The disorder’s definition in the manual was designed to be applied to these individuals who are incapacitated from grief one year or more after their loss.

✋ Yes, but… Throughout the past few decades, critics of the idea have argued strongly against categorizing grief as a mental disorder, warning of false positives – aka grieving people told by doctors that they have mental illnesses when they are actually emerging, slowly but naturally, from their losses.

• They also warn that the diagnosis will be seen as a growth market by drug companies, who will then try to persuade the public that they need medical treatment to emerge from mourning (since the addition of prolonged grief disorder to the psychiatric manual means insurance companies can now be billed for treatments).

📊 Flash Poll: What’s your take?

Grief is a mental disorder as defined by the APA; no qualms → (Vote)

Grief is a mental disorder as defined by the APA, but I’m worried about some things → (Vote)

It’s not a disorder → (Vote)