Is Mourning Madness?

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.

A major problem with the proposal is that the symptoms of complicated or prolonged grief?such as yearning, sorrow, and sadness?look much the same as those of normal grief. The new diagnosis, spearheaded by two professors of psychiatry, Katherine Shear and Holly Prigerson, at Columbia and Harvard University respectively, would likely characterize complicated grief as a constellation of symptoms that can include intense feelings of sadness, bitterness, and loneliness; difficulty sleeping and concentrating, and detachment and agitation, among others. (Shear and Prigerson each have different definitions; it?s not yet clear what version would be adopted if it were included.)

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=412910f8964c363dea332bf2e25be7a2

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