Grief Is Not a Mental Illness By Froma Harrop
We moderns seem determined to suppress all unhappiness with one exception: grief. The intense sadness following loss of a loved one still occupies a warm spot in our culture. We want that pain protected from the deadening analgesics of pharmaceuticals.
That explains the American Psychiatric Association's decision to retreat from a plan to categorize ordinary grief as an adjustment disorder. Some wanted to classify a response to significant loss -- deep sadness, insomnia, poor appetite, inability to concentrate, crying -- lasting more than two weeks as a depression rather than normal grief, drawing fire from both mental-health professionals and ordinary folk.
